Economist Craig Pirrong ( Streetwise Professor) argues that the CFTC's defense of its stance on the residual interest proposal for FCMs in the face industry opposition "is purely legalistic, and does not even attempt to address the fundamental economic issues," which Pirrong argues includes "negative impacts of the regulation on liquidity, costs, and systemic risk." Pirrong asserts that the CFTC is hiding behind the legalisms in order to force through a proposal, despite the fact that it will increase costs and risks to users of futures. Lofchie Comment: The specific CFTC rule proposal to

A Senate panel is scheduled to question CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler and SEC Chair Mary Jo White about the status of Dodd-Frank's implementation as it moves into its third year. The CFTC and SEC officials will appear before the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee to discuss topics such as derivatives and the Volcker Rule. The hearing, "Mitigating Systemic Risk in Financial Markets through Wall Street Reforms," is set for Tuesday, July 30, 2013. Lofchie Comment: One of the things that I have learned from watching the Dodd-Frank hearings is that the process would work much better

The SEC announced that Donald M. Hoerl, director of its Denver Regional Office, is leaving in August after more than 30 years at the agency. See: SEC Press Release.

Linked below is an article entitled "Drums along the Potomac," focusing on the CFTC's budget constraints, organizational difficulties, and competing priorities. The article also discusses the views of former CFTC Commissioner Sommers as to the likelihood of substantial regulatory change in the CFTC's rules under Dodd-Frank. See: Click here to view the article. The above link is an excerpt from the most recent issue of Energy Metro Desk, which is published biweekly by Scudder Publishing Group, an energy trade news publishing company based in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Those

The GAO has issued a report examining the effects of the financial crisis of 2007-2008 on the insurance industry, finding that the negative effects of the crisis were quite concentrated, hitting primarily AIG and a number of other insurers involved in financial insurance or the mortgage market. The report addressed the following issues: What is known about how the financial crisis affected the insurance industry, The factors that affected the impact of the crisis on the insurers and policyholders, The types of actions that have been taken since the crisis to help prevent or mitigate potential