Volcker Rule: Wall Street Elders Throw Support Behind Former Fed Chief's Bank Reforms

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.

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Comments

[banker67]

08:04 AM on 02/18/2010

Just out of curiosity, where were all these multi-millionaire old guys when Reagan's thugs began in earnest to destroy all regulation?
I don't recall that any of these guys resigned in protest. If they weren't in favor of tearing apart deregulation, why were they so pathetically inept at opposing that crusade?
Seems to me you have a credibility problem criticizing today's pathological greed-heads from the library in your mansion on Fisher's Island, Capri or Ibiza.
If they're so upset, they can always give all their money to charity.
Even if they are finally seeing the sense of not destroying the middle class, it looks like they really just want some of that old media attention to re-inflate their massive egos.
Where were you when the middle class needed you, fellas? Ans: Doing exactly what the guys who pushed you off your throne are doing.
If you want to help, donate just measly 10% of your personal assets to pay off retiree's mortgages or pay the rent on apartments of all the old poor people you left in the dust in your roast beef days.

[Helzapoppin]

12:33 AM on 02/18/2010

We remained pretty stable back when these elders were in charge. But the younger generation of bankers come off as little more than crack addicts.

[SirenForSanity]

12:50 AM on 02/18/2010

We, their provider, are about to run out of supply. So when they start looking at each others' stash, and turning on each other, economic rehab can begin. Addict behavior is pretty predictable.

[Aerows]

09:46 AM on 02/18/2010

If I wasn't worried about what destruction was going to take place in the process, I'd probably be happy to see them turn on each other. When they do turn on each other, though, that's when some ugly truths are going to come out and there will finally be no more excuses as to why we can't jail some of them.

[Andie Marshall]

10:38 PM on 02/17/2010

One can usually depend on wealthy old white men to talk about the good ol' days when women knew their place and America was comfortable with segregation. So one cannot help but sit up and take notice when the old men say "NO! You simply cannot trust our sons; they will rape and pillage, and sell their own mothers." Didn't this government recently ignore the warning of a wealthy concerned father when he tried to warn us about his rogue son? Maybe these guys don't wear underwear.

[Tiggy]

11:29 PM on 02/17/2010

They ignored Born, the woman who predicted, warned and tried to regulate the OTC Derivs. How awful she was treated by the likes of Summers, Greenspan, Rubin, Levitts and even our Congress.
While I commend Volker, it is no secrect that he has encountered opposition from Summers and Geithner..both of whom ignored the Warnings of Born. Some things...never change.

[jeanrenoir]

12:31 AM on 02/18/2010

Typical of dumb, clueless Boomer narcissists to diss members of the Greatest Generation. Such Boomer folly is one reason the Boomers themselves have been the Worst Generation, totally wrecking and bankrupting what was once the richest, most powerful, most respected country in the world. The one the Greatest Generation handed to the Boomer brats on a silver platter, only to see the brats strip-mine it for their own bonuses and make America an economic basket case. If the Boomers had had a little more of the wisdom and integrity of Volcker, they wouldn't have Madoffed the country the way they did last year.

[Aerows]

08:57 PM on 02/17/2010

The American people are too big to fail. We are more important than the banks, since our lifeblood flows into the economy. If we *aren't* too big to fail as an entire country, then we need to figure out why our Constitution has failed utterly, since it said that we were all created equally.

If you are too big to fail, mr. Corporate person, then so am I. I am too big to fail as a person and have any of my assets taken away, devalued, or otherwise infringed upon.

Here's an apple, I hope you like them.

[SirenForSanity]

12:05 AM on 02/18/2010

You are so right, Aerows. We need to claim what is rightfully ours and begin to acknowledge to ourselves the inalienable rights granted to us by the Constitution.

[jeanrenoir]

12:37 AM on 02/18/2010

Dream on. The American masses are terminally stupid and helpless, especially the Tea Baggers, who are being played by Dick Armey, Fox, and Rush like a violin. Could anything possibly be more pitiful than the Tea Baggers, who constitute precisely 11% of the electorate, for all their bombast, and are so dumb they actually believe they are going to "reform" American politics, when, in fact, they are simply doing corporate America's bidding? All better educated Americans know what pathetic tools these morons are. It's so obvious. Only the Tea Party types don't get it. Anyone who thinks he or she can change the complete corporate domination of America, especially when its so easy for corporations to use corporate Fox and Rush to get so many dumb Americans to believe absolutely any lie the corporations want them to believe, is simply delusional.

[edgarcaycedoc]

08:12 PM on 02/17/2010

Seems to me the headline should read, "Obama throws support behind Wall Street elder's bank reform plan." The real losers are the American public. But--trickle down has always worked for me! NOT!

[jeanrenoir]

12:42 AM on 02/18/2010

So typical of the dumb American herd! The herd doesn't want Obama to protect them from losing their insurance when they get cancer. So no wonder the morons don't want these wise, honest old men of real integrity and insight to help shape a financial reform that would actually protect the American dolts from an even worse meltdown of Wall St. in the future. The dumb herd fights off any attempt to help it, because Rush and Fox and the terminally clueless Tea Party, all working for the banks, whether then know it or not, tell them to. American really used to be smarter than this, back in the Depression with a "D." Amazing how comparatively stupid the Boomers are now.

[offred]

06:59 PM on 02/17/2010

"Frontline" on PBS had an excellent show on last night called "The Warning."

In 1996, Brooksley Borne, the chairwoman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, warned that unregulated derivatives could damage the economy. The usual suspects (Greenspan, Summers, Geithner, Rubin) derided her warnings. Six months later, these guys panicked about a hedge fund going under and arranged a quiet bailout of the hedge fund, a precursor of things to come.

http://video.pbs.org/video/1302794657/

[RudyHaugeneder]

06:45 PM on 02/17/2010

Where were these old guys before everything went bad -- on the sidelines silently cheering madly for deregulation that made them even more wealthy?
They are just as guilty as the rest of the Wall Street deregulation moguls but now they want to be seen as saints. Bah, humbug. Let the devil have them. All these guys are guilty as sin and should be taxed into Hades.

[anticapitalist1983]

06:36 PM on 02/17/2010

we need the reforms proposed by E. Warren now!

[TAIsabel]

06:34 PM on 02/17/2010

Having cut my teeth as an Economist on Wall Street in 1979 but taught (both Bachelor's and Masters) well in the tradition of economics with a conscience, I know exactly what these great thinkers are trying to achieve.

After witnessing, from the heart of the beast, the debauchery that became Wall Street in the early 80's (remember Michael Milken, junk bonds, Drexel ?), I left it for good and watched in horror as economics, known as "the science of common sense" was twisted, used and abused in the name of greed.

Bring back Glass- Steagall, bring back regulations, bring back common sense.

[Shomali]

05:16 PM on 02/17/2010

I watched this weeks front-line on PBS about credit default swaps and their promoters and complete deregulators in the 90's: Bob Rubin, Alan Greenspan, Larry Summers, and Arthur Levitt-- and Geithner to lesser degree. The only person who wanted to regulate CDS was Brooksley Born, the chairwoman commodity future trade commission. Six months after her initial push to regulate CDS there was a mini version of 2008 collapse that was averted by the banks themselves while the economy was in the middle of the dot com boom. These people not only forced her out, but with help from congress (led by Gramm of Texas) took the regulatory power out of the agency.

Anyone with a little knowledge of statistics and a little logic can convince himself the whole CDS doesn't work unless there is an intrinsic un-speculative value for the underlying asset, otherwise it becomes like a ponzi scheme requiring constant incoming money to cover what goes out. They are talking about regulating a little bit of CDS and in return guaranteeing government/fed cash infusion into this ponzi scheme. CDS should be outlawed except for commodities/goods to guarantee payments and where it would be used for a small percentage of those commodities or goods as to not inflate the value of the commodity as it was done to oil a couple of years ago. They are talking about regulating fraud, and by implication legalizing it.

[Bogey907]

07:29 PM on 02/17/2010

Phil Gramm turns up in every story about deregulation failure.

[The Cause Endures]

12:36 AM on 02/18/2010

Or is that all in our heads?

[cybersense]

05:04 PM on 02/17/2010

Good to hear something from these experienced, but conservative masters. Yep, that's they way it was, and that regulation has to happen, or we well all become worse for it. Haven't seen enough corruption yet, have we?

[munki]

04:47 PM on 02/17/2010

Traditional bankers... took deposit and loaned...

Today's bankers (especially so called formerly known as investment bankers)... took money and twisted in a bundle added spice with rating agencies and sold to private wealth or public... took handsome fee front and back end and got fat pocket...

P.S. how many "and" had to be used???

[Tom Joad]

04:44 PM on 02/17/2010

...oh, I don't know...I think they should've held out for $5T...

[munki]

04:50 PM on 02/17/2010

Today's bankers (especially so called formerly known as investment bankers)... took money packaged in a bundle added spice from rating agencies - $old to public or other institution$

Charged handsome front and back end fees - made $M $O $N $E $Y...

[lisakaz2]

04:26 PM on 02/17/2010

But we may have to wheel out a guillotine to get the lobbying banksters to back off...

[munki]

04:45 PM on 02/17/2010

unfortunately... too many

they have $$$ to buy who loves $$$ and not for the best interest of us... Americans

[TAIsabel]

06:40 PM on 02/17/2010

It certainly worked wonders for the French. Almost makes you nostalgic, doesn't it?

[lisakaz2]

07:14 PM on 02/17/2010

Since they still celebrate Bastille Day, I think you make a case that it worked in the long run. They don't have a king and their health care system is FAR MORE INCLUSIVE than ours.

[novoorganum]

03:53 PM on 02/17/2010

“"I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the Bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the Bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out and, by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out."

Andrew Jackson”