Nigeria Content Online

Some of the richest
and most powerful people in the United States are arguing about money
and the world has trillions of dollars invested in the outcome.

The battle is about
how Washington should prevent another credit crisis like the one that
began two years ago and punished much of the planet.

“I believe we have
to do everything we can to ensure that no crisis like this ever happens
again,” President Barack Obama said this week. “That’s why I’m fighting
so hard to pass a set of Wall Street reforms and consumer protections.”

The reforms will
impose new regulations and oversight on U.S. banks and other financial
institutions, which do business with investors and governments
worldwide.

It’s an industry that still has stunning profits and problems.

This week, U.S.
regulators charged Goldman Sachs, one of the most aggressive and
profitable names in high finance, with a massive fraud that allegedly
cheated Goldman’s own customers – among them, some of the biggest banks
in Europe.

Goldman said it was innocent of any wrongdoing and found an entirely different way to raise eyebrows.

It announced that
its profits for the first three months of the year totalled more than
$3.4 billion, despite the sluggish state of the U.S. economy.

The House of
Representatives has already passed a bill to change the way Wall Street
does business and this week the Senate began its own debate.

Democrats are vowing to adopt the reform and Republicans are adamant they’ll oppose it.

Lobbyists and executives have crowded into Washington, hoping for a chance to influence lawmakers.

The political
parties, along with private organisations such as the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce, have spent more than a million dollars a week on television
ads arguing their points of view to the American people.

The Obama administration faced much stronger opposition to its health-care reform and managed to get it adopted anyway.

Now, another multi-trillion-dollar industry is in the midst of a big fight over how it makes its money.

And what it may be doing with yours.