Kn This Issue:

Leading the Past Week; Fiscal Cliff; Legislative Branch; Executive Branch; and Miscellaneous.

Excerpt from Leading the Past Week -

With less than two weeks remaining until the November 6th elections, this update offers highlights of what has been going on in the financial services world over the past few weeks. While all eyes in the country may be focused on Hurricane Sandy, as well as that Presidential race, other issues continue to percolate at the Capitol and throughout the Administration. Clearly, the primary concern, outside of the election, is how to deal with the fiscal cliff, which is the combination of the expiration of the so-called “Bush Tax cuts”, the sequestrations, and potentially the need to raise the debt ceiling. This issue is also fast becoming a major concern for business leaders, and we are starting to see a group organize around the need to pressure Congress for a deal. In other news, banking groups and their allies continue to argue for relief from the Basel III capital rules, as lawmakers and industry endeavor to convince regulators to focus on simple leverage ratio-based rules, rather than implement the complex Basel standards in their entirety.