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The Coming Quota Tsunami

We are told by our betters that the financial regulation bill making its way through Congress is necessary in order to prevent another financial meltdown. In fact, insofar as that meltdown was precipitated by a burst housing bubble produced at least in part by the Community Reinvestment Act, Fannie and Freddie, et al. forcing lenders to offer mortgages to borrowers who couldn?t afford them, the new legislation threatens to magnify those misguided policies a thousand fold. Think CRA, Fannie, and Freddie on steroids.

Diana Furchtgott-Roth explains, today (here) and tomorrow (here, from which the following is quoted) that ?the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill, scheduled for a vote in the Senate when it returns from recess, imposes race and gender employment quotas on the financial industry.?

Dodd-Frank's Section 342 states that race and gender employment ratios must be observed by all government agencies that regulate the financial sector, as well as private financial institutions that do business with the government.

In addition to the bill's well-publicized plans to establish over a dozen new financial regulatory offices, Section 342 sets up at least 20 Offices of Minority and Women Inclusion in:

• The 10 Departmental Offices of the Department of the Treasury;

• The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.;

• The Federal Housing Finance Agency;

• The 12 Federal Reserve regional banks;

• The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve;

• The National Credit Union Administration;

• The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency;

• The Securities and Exchange Commission; and

• The new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
  

The director and staff of each office are tasked with promoting equal employment opportunities and racial, ethnic, and gender diversity not just in the agency's work force, but also the work forces of its contractors and subcontractors.

The mission of these federal monitors it is to assure ?to the maximum extent possible the fair inclusion? of women and minorities, individually and through businesses they own, in the activities of the agencies, including contracting.

Well, I suppose one could say, what?s the problem? True, ?all financial institutions, including brokers and law firms? will be monitored to make sure that all ?contracts? ? defined as ??all contracts,? including those dealing with debt, equities and securities? ? have the proper ?inclusion? of women and minorities, but only to the extent that such inclusion is ?fair.?

Each of the 20 offices, Furchtgott-Roth explains,

would have its own director and staff to develop policies promoting equal employment opportunities and racial, ethnic, and gender diversity of not just the agency's workforce, but also the workforces of its contractors and sub-contractors.

If you like the idea of an army of federal ?diversity? apparatchiks monitoring all major financial transactions of organizations doing business with the government, then you?ll love Dodd-Frank finreg.

And whose brainchild was this coming quota tsunami? None other than everyone?s favorite ?diverse? Congressperson, Maxine Waters. As she proudly proclaims in a July 1 press release,

?I wrote this legislation to make sure that federal financial regulatory agencies ensure diversity in their hiring and promotion, as well as in their contracting, so that competent and qualified minorities and women and minority-, women- and small-businesses have a seat at the table.?
....
Congresswoman Waters authored an amendment, adopted by the House-Senate conference, to create Offices of Minority and Women Inclusion at each of the federal regulatory agencies ? including the Department of the Treasury, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Depository Insurance Company, among others ? in order to ensure the racial, ethnic and gender diversity of the work force and senior management. The offices would also increase the participation of minority-owned and women-owned businesses in the programs and contracts of each agency.

NNow, don?t you feel better about both financial stability and racial progress?

Full post as published by Discriminations on July 09, 2010 (boomark / email).