Monday, August 30, 2010

New “Diversity” Regulations Coming

This is “financial” reform?

The recently enacted financial reform legislation tries in numerous ways to change how Wall Street companies and their federal regulators act, but a little-noticed provision aims for something potentially more difficult and controversial — altering how they look.

To promote diversity in the largely white, male world, the new law requires each of the 30 federal financial agencies and departments, including the Securities and Exchange Commission and all 12 Federal Reserve banks, to establish an Office of Minority and Women Inclusion.

Those offices will work with vaguely defined powers to boost diversity at their agencies and the companies they regulate, and to increase federal contracting opportunities for minority- and women-owned businesses. Banks and other financial firms determined to have failed to make “a good-faith effort to include minorities and women in their workforce” could lose their government contracts.

And once again, the uncertainty is killing businesses.

If the legislation is interpreted broadly, the diversity requirements could reach down to subcontractors who provide food or janitorial services — something not required under current rules, said Jon Geier, an employment law expert at the Paul Hastings law firm.

“My clients are wondering what more will they have to do?” he said. “I can’t tell them yet. It could be substantial. It could be a paper tiger.”

(7) Comments
Posted by Owen at 1257 hrs
Economy + Politics + Politics - General

  1. More forced political correctness aimed at artificially attaining “diversity” that would not, and has not normally occured. Basically having the Government saying you “will” do as we say. This is pure BS, plain and simple. Government out of control.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 30, 2010 at 1325 hrs


  2. Why do these job swap policies come out when there is a bad economy?

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 30, 2010 at 1509 hrs


  3. Of course it’s not financial reform. This whole movement is about cultural and social “reform”. The progressives have to cloak all these distasteful anti-American programs in propaganda so that they can slip them into our society like a rapist slips ecstasy into his dates drink.

    If these are such great and popular ideas, then why are they always hidden, and why don’t the Democrats step up and embrace them openly?

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 30, 2010 at 1537 hrs


  4. Now intersperse this with your previous post and things make perfect (non)sense in regards to why we are having this (no) recovery summer.

    hmmm

    Posted by hsgbdmama on August 30, 2010 at 1546 hrs


  5. Diversity legislation from the most closed minded and un-inclusive people among us. Does the hypocrisy never cease?

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 30, 2010 at 1719 hrs


  6. Obama had an easy ability to fix the financial problems in three steps.

    1. Re-instate Glass Steagall
    2. Put all derivatives on an open and transparent exchange
    3. Reform FNMA and Freddie and take away the government subsidy of housing.

    Did we do any of that?  No. 

    But we apparently will hire thousands of additional government workers to “diversify” the financial services industry while making our credit card statements more complex with multiple pages of new disclosure language.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 30, 2010 at 2125 hrs


  7. It seems strange that news of the “diversity requirements” in this bill (is there any way to phrase this without using Newspeak?) is just now appearing in mainstream press outlets such as the LA Times.

    There was certainly coverage of this BEFORE the bill was passed—but, not from any of the big mainstream news outlets.  For example, http://www.ctemploymentlawblog.com/2010/07/articles/legislative-issues/financial-reform-bill-would-impose-diversity-requirements-for-federal-contractors/

    BEFORE the bill passed, all the big press outlets had were stories covering the need for increased requlation of Wall Street to prevent future catastrophes—and not a word on the new diversity requirements.

    I’m inclined to say this is probably due to laziness on the part of the press, rather than malfeasance.  After all, most reporters would rather re-phrase a press release (especially from a friendly source) than figure out what’s really in an 884-page bill.

    But whatever the cause, it says little for the mainstream press that news like this only becomes widely available AFTER it’s too late to do much of anything about it.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 31, 2010 at 0944 hrs


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