Banking Bill

Regarding the financial services bill: What is going on? Decades of consumer protection about to go by the wayside and no discussion promoted by the press? Banks, insurance companies and securities speculators about to be given carte blanche to merge their interests and their once separately held information about our private lives and scarcely a murmur.

A [former] administration Cabinet member openly stands to benefit from his efforts and openly lobbies within two years of having left his position for passage of that bill and for all intents and purposes the media voice is mute, beyond regurgitating the corporate one-stop-shopping spin. Legislators are not even able to include a provision allowing consumers to opt out and protect their privacy. Could it have anything to do with the hundreds of thousands of dollars in support that key legislators on key committees of the Senate and House have received?

CHARLES POPER

Fountain Valley