How Dodd-Frank Regulations Affect You (Trust Us, They Will)

TruthOut.org / Flickr

Parts of Dodd-Frank are set to go into effect this year.

One of the key consequences of the economic collapse a few years ago was the passage of a massive piece of legislation called the “Dodd-Frank Act.”  The bill was co-sponsored by (now-retired) Democratic Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut and (soon-to-be-retired) Democratic Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank.  In a nutshell, their idea was to prevent another massive financial crisis by more heavily regulating key players in the financial industry.

As one would suspect from a sweeping overhaul of accountability and transparency standards, it’s very, very long, complex, and difficult to understand.

And, of course, it’s also incredibly controversial.

As Karen Weise of Bloomberg Business Week explains, “Intended to make corporate practices transparent, the law itself is anything but. The government has yet to spell out the details of most of the 400 new regulations it imposes.”

Fortunately, Businessweek went ahead and created a cool graphic to disentangle this arcane piece of legislation, and explain how it affects people, from financial execs on down to college grads. We’ve got a copy of the graphic below. You can see it in more detail if you click on it (and blow it up with your little mouse wheel).  Or, you can just bug on over to Bloomberg and check out the original.

Karen Weise / Bloomberg Business Week