The financial sector has a lot to celebrate as 2013 draws to a close.

UPDATE: Volcker Rule Made Meaningless by Abundant Exemptions
The financial sector has a lot to celebrate as 2013 draws to a close. The banksters of Wall street have a lot of good news to dance about starting with the gutting of the so-called Volker rule! Some say that because the banks are tasked to "self report" violations and can treat other banks as "clients" rather than as institutions that fall under more strict regulations that the rule is fatally flawed.

1.) More questions than answers: The Volcker rule From the Economist:

Daniel Gallagher, a dissenting member of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), one of the five agencies that approved the rule this week, complained that he and his colleagues had been given only five days to review the revised draft of the rule before deciding on it. “All we can say for sure is that the final rule set jettisons scores of flawed assumptions and incorrect conclusions in favour of new, unproven assumptions and conclusions,” he noted dryly, calling its hasty adoption “the height of regulatory hubris”.

From the NYT: Finally, the Volcker Rule

The success of the Volcker Rule, unveiled this week, depends on federal regulators doing what they failed to do in the run-up to the financial crisis and have done only haltingly since then: Enforce the spirit as well as the letter of the law against the wishes of powerful banks.

2.) At Truthdig: Climate threatens retirement savings

LONDON—The Asset Owners Disclosure Project (AODP) asked the world’s thousand largest asset owners what they were doing to guard against the possibility that their investments in fossil fuels could, in future, become worthless. Together, the owners manage more than US$70 trillion of funds. The Project found that only 27 of the 460 investment funds replying to its request are currently addressing climate risk at what it considers a responsible level. Only five of the 460 achieved the AODP’s top AAA, with an additional 29 rated A or above. Only these groups, says the Project, “will survive a carbon crash in any kind of good shape”. . Of the 1,000 asset owners approached, 80% are either D rated (abysmal) or X rated (doing nothing). A further 540 funds did not disclose sufficient information to allow a rating.

3.) A Government of the Billionaires, for the Billionaires, by the Billionaires 4.) Are Economic Royalists Leading the US Over a Precipice? 5.) When Lenders Sue, Quick Cash Can Turn Into a Lifetime of Debt 6.) Let's Get This Straight: AIG Execs Got Bailout Bonuses, but Pensioners Get Cuts 7.) Three Ways the Super-Rich Suck Wealth Out of the Rest of Us 8.) Iceland Sends Four Bank Bosses to the Slammer 9.) The Pension-Busters' Playbook 10.)And as a final insight you might like to take a look at this video.