Soros, Brady, Reed, Donaldson and Bogle Favor Volcker Rule
No surprise here: The elder statesmen of Wall Street favor the Volcker rule:
“Put aside for a moment the populist pressure to regulate banking and trading. Ask the elder statesmen of these industries — giants like George Soros, Nicholas F. Brady, John S. Reed, William H. Donaldson and John C. Bogle — where they stand on regulation, and they will bowl you over with their populism.
They certainly don’t think of themselves as angry Main Streeters. They grew quite wealthy in finance, typically making their fortunes in the ’70s and ’80s when banks and securities firms were considerably more regulated. And now, parting company with the current chieftains, they want more rules.”
When folks like these support something that current CEOs oppose, its easy to figure out the differences between the two groups: The senior players want to see Wall Street have a more robust infrastructure that handles risk better, and is more survivable in a crisis. The current CEOs are driven primarily by profits.
I am in the senior camp — the Volcker rule would not have prevented this crisis, but it would reduce taxpayer exposure to Wall Street speculation. It also might stop the next crisis.
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Source:
Elders of Wall St. Favor More Regulation
LOUIS UCHITELLE
NYT, February 16, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/business/17volcker.html
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February 17th, 2010 at 6:36 am
Rubin would need to publicly come out in favor to save face for Summers and Geithner.
If that happens then I would say if has some traction.
February 17th, 2010 at 8:11 am
Good point !
February 17th, 2010 at 8:15 am
i guess if they donated a few billion too campaign funds and lobbyists, it’s quite obvious nothing will be done because it hasn’t, they’re saving banks any way they can, and saving housing any way they can, ie, changing laws and moving money around, pretty disgusting, yet it is what it is
February 17th, 2010 at 8:35 am
WADR, it appears that blogs have no more interest in real action (as opposed to endless words) than the players who benefit from the status quo.
I guess when one is building a blog, maintaining one or writing a book the primary goal is to get it read, as opposed to holding their feet to the fire, the names of those who are benefitting mightily from things as they are.
Along the lines of what Torrie-Amos writes above.
Those that have a “coinicidence of interests”, the accidental conspiracists, those we rarely ever and mainly never see, such as those before Congress lying to their and our faces for a few hours, the Flexians, the ones at Davos who are making the deals that run the world, will never be exposed on blogs such this one.
Other than venting frustration, the time wasted here is akin to monday (t, w, th, fr, sa, su) morning quarterbacking.
Nothing will come of any of the millions of thoughts, words and posts.
February 17th, 2010 at 8:37 am
“The senior players want to see Wall Street have a more robust infrastructure that handles risk better, and is more survivable in a crisis.”
But, but, but: That would presumably curtail “failing upwards”–the incompetent wouldn’t be promoted to positions of responsibility if their handywork couldn’t ultimately be off-loaded onto the taxpayer! Think of all those car wash employees who crossed over during the credit boom into the mortgage biz… we don’t want to waste their ‘talents’, do we?
February 17th, 2010 at 8:44 am
Bogle knows little to nothing about banking (100% not his business).
Soros knows little about modern banking / mortgages (he knows alot, and I respect him, but not sure he’s up on the details).
Donaldson… didnt he mess up the SEC? Any good reason to listen to him?
John Reed… hmm, chairman of leadership at Citigroup (lets follow this guy?)
The funny thing is this problem is past. We needed a “committee” and expert recs to solve the problem in Q1 2008 or even Q4 2008. But then what was done was done, when Q1 2009… problem is mainly solving itself along those lines (>50% solved). We need some new financial regs, but why arent they focused on the consumer and mortgage lending? (Prop trading really didnt cause the problems!?)
Better expert choices would be:
William Isaac — former head of FDIC (was early, strong critic of Paulson, Bair)
JC Flowers — financial PE guy, super smart, unconnected
Jamie Dimon — best guy in banking
some former Fed governors
February 17th, 2010 at 9:49 am
cognos,
for some reason, you bring to mind this art.: “…What this s***-for-brains article doesn’t explore is how many hundreds or thousands of full time, professionally run honeypots, black propaganda outlets, sock puppets/trolls/shills etc. are operational on Facebook…”
esp. the “sock puppets/trolls/shills etc.”-part..
The CIA and NSA Want You to Be Their Friend on Facebook
February 16th, 2010
http://cryptogon.com/?p=13749
EFF sues CIA, DOJ, others over Facebook surveillance
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-369425.html
~~
to the post:
the ‘more regulation’-thing, is always a sticky wicket..though, it is, entirely, understandable that the ‘elder chieftains’ see, more clearly, that the ‘Goose that laid the Golden Eggs’ has been endangered by the actions of the current crowd..
but, still, I think we’ve a different problem than that of, merely, being ‘under-regulated’, we have too many Regulations that went ‘under-followed/-enforced’, and their infractions ‘under-prosecuted’..
RICO, save for AG “Bag” Holder, is, still, on the Books, no?
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sticky+wicket
February 17th, 2010 at 10:42 am
I read Barry’s post and said to myself wryly “Yeah, smarty guys, elder statesman…blah..blah..blah…but, more importantly, what does Cognos think??”
And, Cognos, you did not disappoint!
February 17th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
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