UH OH : TRUMP IS ABOUT UNLEASH PREDATORY WALL STREET ONTO US AGAIN

Yesterday, Donald Trump selected Jay Clayton, a top lawyer advising Wall Street firms, to head the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the chief regulatory agency of Wall Street. The pick is yet another indication of his incoming administration’s agenda of deregulation and the promotion of unbridled profiteering by American finance.

...Clayton was involved in the 2014 initial public offering of Chinese internet firm Alibaba, the most lucrative IPO in history. He worked on deals by Barclays and JP Morgan Chase in the aftermath of the financial crisis to acquire the assets of collapsed investment banks Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. Sullivan and Cromwell also represented JP Morgan Chase in its settlement with the Justice Department in 2013 over its fraudulent sale of toxic mortgage-backed securities in the leadup to the financial crisis. The bank paid $13 billion in exchange for the equivalent of a general amnesty for its illegal activities.

Clayton’s wife works as a private wealth advisor for Goldman Sachs, underscoring Clayton’s close personal relationships with the industry he will now be tasked with regulating. Carl Icahn, the billionaire corporate raider and close Trump ally, interviewed Clayton as part of the vetting process, according to Reuters. Icahn was recently appointed to the informal post of Special Advisor to the President on Regulatory Reform, and, like Trump himself, stands to benefit directly from the deregulation polices of the new administration.

[source : Wall Street lawyer to head Securities and Exchange Commission, WSWS, http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/01/05/trum-j05.html, 5th January 2017]