Who Profits From Derivatives Changes?

Regulation of all of those nasty derivatives that helped caused the fall of Lehman Brothers and hastened the economic decline last year has definitely been on the minds of the Obama administration and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.

For months, the administration has been gathering ideas and proposals on how to get control of an almost $600 trillion market traded over the counter, outside of the regulated and monitored exchanges and with very little oversight.

From all indications, Geithner's plans will not be quite as forgiving and "hands off" as his predecessor Hank Paulson's, and the banks seem to be aware of this.

In February, a combined proposal letter from Goldman Sachs (GS Quote), JPMorgan Chase(JPM Quote) and Barclays (BCS Quote) went to Treasury with suggestions about how to shape the forthcoming regulation. That letter surfaced only recently, and the indications are that it was received positively by the Treasury Department. Much of what was in that proposal will be adopted by Treasury. ...