Dodd-Frank Rules Will Crush Employment, Banks Warn (2.9 Million fewer jobs created by 2015)

IBD ^ | 12/5/2011 | PAUL SPERRY

[Qbert]

Job-killing bank regulations threaten to wipe out all the gains in private-sector employment since the recovery began, the industry warns. Washington, however, is hiring thousands more bureaucrats to enforce the rules.

Signed into law last year, the Dodd-Frank Act is the biggest rewrite of financial regulations since the New Deal. It was intended to rein in Wall Street "excesses." But the banking industry says burdensome red tape is hurting economic growth and jobs in a still-sluggish labor market.

"The level of real GDP could be 2.7% less by the year 2015 than would otherwise be the case for the United States," said Stephen Wilson, outgoing chairman of the American Bankers Association. "This could result in 2.9 million fewer jobs being created."

By comparison, the economy has created 1.78 million private jobs since the recovery officially began in June 2009.

Wilson says Dodd-Frank has resulted in more than 5,230 pages of proposed and final rules, which laid end-to-end would exceed the height of New York's Empire State Building — five times over.

Only a fourth of the rules have gone into effect so far, he says; yet the law in its first year has already imposed almost 20 million hours of paperwork on U.S. businesses. It took an estimated 5.5 million man-hours, in contrast, to build every iPhone sold.

Dodd-Frank compliance costs for the financial industry already top $12 billion. That is expected to swell as the remaining 77% of required rules are finalized.

[Psycho_Bunny]

It’s amazing how much fiscal damage that POS Frank has his fat fingers in.