Banks: Real Reform and Pitchforks

[nradisic]

President Obama told a group of bank executives on Monday that they were obligated to loosen lending and take other action to help the American economy. In a taped interview on Sunday night on “60 Minutes,” he called bankers “fat cats” “who still don’t get” why the public is so mad at them.

But as Citigroup becomes the latest bailed-out bank to announce it is repaying its TARP money, and frees itself from government oversight on compensation and pay, what leverage does the president have?

Any regulation will have to come from Congress. The House barely passed a banking regulation bill last week that critics said was full of loopholes, and the Senate version of the legislation will face more compromises. If Americans are that angry, why aren’t Congressmen quicker to pick up their pitchforks? Do they know something the public doesn’t?

* Douglas Elliott, Brookings Institution
* Yves Smith, financial analyst
* Megan McArdle, Asymmetrical Information
* William K. Black, former banking regulator


This is a must read form the NY Times....http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/14/banks-real-reform-and-pitchforks/

[nradisic]

1. Just a suggestion..

I think the most interesting part is written by William K. Black - he speaks truth to power...

[DJ13]

2. A Lack of Nerve

The issue is not a lack of leverage, it’s a lack of nerve and a deliberate decision to side with the banks against the public until now. From the outset, the Obama administration adopted a finance-favoring posture, from its failure to push hard for allowing mortgages to be written down in consumer bankruptcies, to the charade of the stress tests, to the bank-friendly but largely stillborn Public Private Investment Partnerships, to dropping the most meaningful element of proposed consumer financial services protection agency, that of requiring banks to offer plain vanilla products.