Chart of the Day: The War on Dodd-Frank

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Dodd-Frank was not exactly a brutal piece of financial regulation even when it first passed. In fact, it was so watered down that its overall effect was always likely to be pretty modest. Since then, though, it’s gotten watered down even more. Why? Because banks are very, very rich and very, very connected, while financial reformers….aren’t. The chart below tells the story at a glance, showing the number of meetings to discuss regulatory interpretation and implementation over the past three years. As you can see, the reform groups never had a chance.

This comes via Erika Eichelberger, who has more here. Note that Goldman Sachs alone accounts for 222 of these meetings.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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