Barack Obama, Great Depression | featured news

The Congress on Thursday approved the broadest overhaul of financial rules since the Great Depression and sent it to President Barack Obama to sign into law.

The House of Representatives was expected to approve the biggest changes in financial regulation since the Great Depression on Friday, marking a win for the Obama administration.

A White House spokesman said Wednesday that the United States has avoided falling off an economic cliff, citing as evidence a new report showing factory orders rose in June for the fourth time in five months, an unexpected gain and the latest sign that the ailing manufacturing sector is recovering.

The Obama administration's aggressive plan for strict scrutiny of hedge funds and other freewheeling investors, part of the biggest expansion of financial restraints since the Great Depression, is drawing instant opposition from Republican lawmakers and the rules' targets. And skeptics are questioning whether the new rulebook would work anyway.