It doesn't regulate Wall St, it regulates anything that Dodd or Frank wanted to regulate. Buried in the 2000 pages is a requirement for US companies to report to the SEC yearly if they use tantalum, tin, tungsten, or gold from the Congo or nine neighboring countries.
Tantalum is needed to make high performance capacitors. Used to be only military electronics could afford tantalum oxide capacitors, while civilian electronics had to make do with aluminum oxide capacitors, but now tantalum is cheap enough for civilian use. Tungsten makes lamp filaments and tungsten carbide teeth to tip saw blades. Tin and gold have been valuable since Phoenician times.
Apparently Dodd or Frank slipped this goody into the financial regulation bill in order to cut off sales by Congo rebels. In actual fact it's cutting off sales from all of Africa. It also requires every company in the supply chain to do mountains of extra paper work, raising costs for all of us.
First I ever heard of it was yesterday's Wall St Journal. Apparently Dodd and Frank knew that a straight "apply-economic-sanctions-to-the-Congo" bill would never pass Congress, so they hid it deep inside their pet financial regulation bill.
Another good reason to never pass any bill too long to read.
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