Supreme Court to state regulators: Back off national banks.WOW...
That's the message of a 5-3 decision announced Tuesday by the high court in a case involving the mortgage unit of Charlotte, N.C.-based Wachovia (nyse: WB - news - people ), the nation's fourth-largest bank. The Supreme Court upheld a U.S. Appeals Court decision that said state regulators must take a backseat to federal regulators in the oversight of national banks and their operating subsidiaries that engage in bank activities.
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Reacting favorably to the ruling Tuesday, U.S. Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan said, "We will continue to supervise national banks and their subsidiaries to assure that their customers are treated fairly and receive the strong protections available under federal laws and regulations."
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Writing for the majority, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg said Tuesday that national banks operating subsidiaries are the jurisdiction of the OCC and "not to the licensing, reporting and visitorial regimes of the several states" in which they operate.
Dissenters included Chief Justice John Roberts, Antonin Scalia and John Paul Stevens, who wrote that the OCC's regulation "threatens both the dual banking system and the principal of competitive equality that is its cornerstone."
A spokeswoman for Wachovia said the bank was "pleased" with the ruling.
[ cf State Bank Regulators Told To Back Off (emphasis mine) ]
There is supposed to be an appropriate level of Federal Law And Regulation???
That some how is majikally going to be operable in the current Judicial Department Welfare Scam, as we learn that gosh, when one has to find a Job for a friend, and one is Not Wolfowitz at The World Bank, where you have the leverage to wedge them Negroponte Style in to The State Department, One can always get one's Opo Researchers into the Justice Department, to investigate the Enemies of the State...
And that is suppose to make me feeel safer, Uh How???
Sort of "there should be no draft" and watching the Reduction of the Federal, State, and Local military and guard units, being ground down to dust, so that we can 'fight theyThemThoseTypes over there' rather than have any actual, uh, realistical Federal Law or Regulatory Oversite Systems....
Oh, sorry, I was not suppose to mix and match the ongoing fiasco of the "libertarian liberation" wing of the Republican Guard, where there is the need for more of everything, except of course Self Government....
So we can know, with that High Sense of Certainty, that if the "regulators" ever come back into serious Fashion, then the correct ones will go gunning for The New Billy The Kid Bad Guys, as soon as the regulators up and get off of their Overly Patriotic Faces, and actually out of their Pajamas, and into the Combat Gear....
BOY, does that make me feel soooo much safer now...