New financial plan had input from all the people who brought us the financial crisis

The new plan to regulate the financial services sector gets unveiled today at !2:50 PM in the East Room of the White House. Via the NY Times, a lot of the same corporate clowns who brought us the economic disaster were at the White House playing a role in fixing it. Now, you know we can trust them, right?:

President Obama’s plan to reshape financial regulation, which he will unveil on Wednesday, is the product of weeks of meetings among government officials, financial experts, lawmakers, industry executives and lobbyists, many of whom were invited to help the White House draft the proposal.

Mr. Obama told reporters on Tuesday that a “lack of oversight” allowed what he called “wild risk-taking.” He said it led to “very dangerous” conditions that imperiled the global economy.

But executives from an array of industries caught up in the financial crisis came to Washington over the last several weeks to make their case for how the new regulatory landscape should look. They came from big banks and small ones, insurance companies and stock exchanges, hedge funds and mutual funds, and were joined by officials from consumer groups and big labor — often with conflicting views.

Now, lobbyists who lost the initial skirmish inside the administration will head to Congress to try to influence the final product.

I don't purport to understand the financial system. Actually, I'm afraid not many people get it. But, I do find it odd that lobbyists were invited to help "draft the proposal." I thought the Obama White House was going to be a lobbyist free-zone? I'm sure all of those people put the nation's interests first.

Anwyway, we know how this goes. Whatever the lobbyists who didn't get what they wanted from the White House will get it on Capitol Hill. Too many Democrats on the Hill are beholden to bank lobbyists -- and, of course, insurance industry lobbyists.

I just finished reading the book, House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street. It's an amazingly interesting read considering the subject. People at major Wall Street firms had no idea what the hell they were doing -- with other people's money. And, your current Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, was right in the thick of it. Those are his people. I really hope he has the spine to rein them in. But, I doubt it.

According to The Times, this is who had a seat at the table:

In the last two weeks alone, the administration has heard from top executives from Goldman Sachs, MetLife, Allstate, JPMorgan Chase, Credit Suisse, Citigroup, Barclays, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, Travelers, Prudential and Wells Fargo, among others. Administration officials also discussed the president’s plan with the top lobbyists at major financial trade associations in Washington.

Too bad they couldn't find the former leaders of the now-defunct Bear Stearns and Lehman, too. They probably had some wise counsel, too.