Wall Street Reform passed the Senate.

What it’s got:

* Derivatives Exchanges and Clearing: Forces almost all derivatives trading onto exchanges and through clearinghouses, with narrow exemptions for non-financial end users.
* Derivatives Spin-Off: Forces banks to spin-off some derivatives trading activity (commodities, energy, metals, agriculture, equities and below-investment-grade credit default swaps) but keep trading related to interest rate swaps, foreign exchange swaps, credit, gold and silver, investment-grade credit default swaps and “any transaction used to hedge risk.”
* Volcker Rule: Implements a stronger ban proposed by Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR), but with an exemption sought by Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) that allows banks to invest up to three percent of their Tier 1 capital in risky hedge funds and private equity firms.
* Consumer Protection Agency: A Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, housed within the Federal Reserve, with an independent director and rule-writing authority. It could be overruled by a majority vote of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, which is composed of bank regulators..
* Auto Dealer Exemption: Exempts auto dealers from oversight by the new consumer regulator.
* Resolution Fund: Includes resolution authority funded by an after-the-fact assessment on large financial institutions. Any extra money needed to unwind a firm can be fronted by the Treasury Department.

I’m not so happy about the Auto Dealer exemption. They’re about as the most predatory people out there when it comes to getting people to spend money they can’t afford.

The other big weakness is allowing bank regulators the ability to overrule the Consumer Protection Agency - but how do you get reform passed when 40% of the Senators are dead-set against consumer protection, and 10% of the Democrats are in the pocket of the financial industry.

Maybe we’ll get some amendments to strenghten this in the future.