"JOBs" Act: H.R.3606 - "Return Greed to Wall Street Act"

The House is set today to vote on H.R.3606, the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, a.k.a. the JOBs Act. (UPDATE: the bill passed with bi-partisan support.) According to many sources, this is a terrible bill that once again deregulates Wall St., essentially returning investment in small businesses to the days of Enron and WorldCom, where fraud and investment protection will run rampant.

Here's Simon Johnson over at his blog, BaseLineScenario:

"Markets with weak investor protection and little effective disclosure are subject to a great deal of volatility. They also do not typically do well over time – there might be a boom for a while, but fraud and excess generally prevail, resulting in a big collapse. Well-connected people, including many stock brokers, can do well – this was the experience in the US stock market frenzy of the 1920s. But ordinary investors do not thrive in this environment – and ultimately everyone suffers, as in the 1930s..." continue reading here.

And here's what Eliot Spitzer has to say:

"Ten years ago, virtually all of the major investment banks on Wall Street were charged with a monumental deception of the American investing public: touting stocks as great investments when in truth the banks believed the stocks to be “dogs,” “pieces of ----,“ and worse. The banks did this because of the conflicts of interest woven into their business model. They were underwriting the very stocks they were also touting, making the investing public dupes helping the banks generate enormous fees..." continue reading here.