Big Banks Throw (Another) Tantrum: Seven And A Half Things To Know:

Big banks are unhappy that smaller banks are now able to issue research on companies they're bringing public.

You probably don't need to know your Klout number, but you probably do need to know these seven and a half things:

Thing One: Big, Bad Banks: As a parent of five-year-olds, I know first-hand the often breathtakingly petty competitiveness of the demographic. It's a trait apparently shared by large banks, only with far less balancing cuteness.

The Financial Times reports that ginormous banks in the U.S. are stomping mad about a feature of the recently signed JOBS Act that lets banks issue research reports on small companies they're helping take public. It was only about a decade ago, you may recall, these big banks were put in a permanent time-out from this sort of activity because they tended to abuse it, writing glowing research reports about CrapStock.com with one keyboard while telling their co-workers the same stock was a giant money-loser with another.

No fair! yell the big banks from their time-out chairs, in response to the JOBS Act, which may not apply to them. If the little banks can write research reports on CrapStock.com, then we can, too. They're pressing their regulators to let them out of time-out, at least on the smallish companies covered by the JOBS Act. And of course the regulators will stoically resist. Ha, no, just kidding, the regulators will probably cave, like they do. But just in case they don't, then the big banks will use all of their powers and all of their skills to keep the little banks from enjoying their new privilege, single-handedly thwarting the will of Congress.

There may be just a touch of petty competitiveness in a Wall Street Journal op-ed bylittle-bank CEO Warren Stephens, who argues in that it's time to break up the banks. But few would disagree with him.

Thing Two: Going To China: China-U.S. relations will be in the spotlight all week as the two countries talk trade and geopolitics all while trying to dance around the delicate subject of the dissident Chen Guangcheng, who might or might not be hiding out at the U.S. embassy, writes Reuters. At least tensions with Iran are potentially cooling down a bit, writes The New York Times, but that still can't make the U.S. happy with the news, reported by Reuters, that China might give sovereign guarantees to its ships carrying Iranian oil.

Thing Three: More Pain In Spain: Standard & Poor's downgraded the credit ratings of several Spanish banks this morning -- not a shock after the rating agency belatedly downgraded Spain itself, but still not a welcome development for the banks. Spanish officials are considering creating "bad banks" to take on bad debts from the Spanish banking system, the Financial Times writes. There could be more of those coming, as Spain fell into recession in the first quarter, notes Reuters.

Thing Four: Soaring Soya: Oil and gasoline prices might have cooled a bit lately, but food prices haven't been as merciful, raising worries about global food inflation, writes the Financial Times. A combination of higher Chinese demand and lower production due to bad weather have driven soyabean prices back toward their record levels in 2007-08.

Thing Five: Not-So-Soaring Stocks: Less hot is the U.S. stock market, write Tom Lauricella and Jonathan Cheng of the Wall Street Journal: "After a strong start to the year for stocks, slowing earnings growth and fresh worries that the Federal Reserve might be less willing to pump new cash into the financial markets are taming the bulls." The Dow is already up about 8 percent this year. We might not get much more the rest of the year, they warn.

Thing Six: Labor Lost: If you think the job market is sketchy in the U.S., then you should see the rest of the world. A group called the International Labour Organization warns that the global job market is still in "alarming" shape, thanks in part to austerity measures and bad reforms: "In advanced countries, especially in Europe, employment is not expected to return to pre-crisis levels of 2008 until the end of 2016 -- two years later than it previously predicted -- in line with a slowdown in production," Reuters writes.

Thing Seven: Watch These Women: In better news, the Wall Street Journal has spotted ten women rising through the ranks of Corporate America, who will possibly soon fill out the thin ranks of female CEOs. It's part of what might be a broader trend of women gaining greater power in the boardroom.

Thing Seven And A Half: Comedy Hour: If you've got about 40 minutes to kill, you could always check out the comedy stylings of President Obama and Jimmy Kimmel at this weekend's White House Correspondents Dinner.

Now Arriving By Email: If you'd like this newsletter delivered daily to your email inbox, then please just feed your email address to the thin box over on the right side of this page, wedged narrowly between the ad and all the social-media buttons. Nothing bad will happen to you if you do, unless you consider getting this newsletter delivered daily to your email inbox a bad thing.

Calendar Du Jour:

Economic Data:

8:30 a.m. ET: Personal income and spending for March

9:45 a.m. ET: Chicago PMI for April

Corporate Earnings:

Before market open:
NYSE Euronext

Morning:
Humana

After market close:
Anadarko Petroleum

Heard On The Tweets:

@ReformedBroker: Bank of England considering Goldman's Jim O'Neill for a post. This as a part of London's new "3 Riots a Month" initiative

@ritholtz: Todays WTF article: Under Catholic pressure Paul Ryan backs away from Rand, Objectivism | The Raw Story: http://t.co/htKrooga

@DKThomp: Paul Ryan on Ayn Rand: “I reject her philosophy." Oh?? “It’s an atheist philosophy." Oh. http://t.co/4vcl8R6H

@BetseyStevenson: The times are a changin' MT @jdlahart For 60 yrs, Clark only went to men. But 3 of the last 5 winners-Athey, Duflo & Finkelstein-are women

@carlquintanilla: Call me a business-news nerd, but it's quietly thrilling running into Paul Volcker at the grocery store. #whoneedsWHCD

@colsonwhitehead: Rejected colors for the new NYC taxis: Hipster's Infected Piercing Red, Subway Platform Vomit Orange, Decomposing Rat Gray

@MikeBloomberg: And the official color of the Five-Boro taxi will be... Apple Green! http://t.co/JytQjOGB

-- Calendar and tweets rounded up by Khadeeja Safdar.

And you can follow us on Twitter, too: @markgongloff and @byKhadeeja

Comments

[moby49]

07:55 AM on 05/01/2012

A few big banks invites collusion, collusion leads to illegal behaviour, illegal behaviour leads to distorted markets and that leads to disaster for the common man.

Glass-Steagall needs to be put back in place with even tougher penalities, primarily criminal. The five big banks are worse than the Columbian and Mexican drug cartels put together in terms of the lives they ruin.

[mangez merde]

02:36 AM on 05/01/2012

A lesson in problem in problem soving:

When babies throw a tantrum, they scream for an hour.

The problem is easily solved by sticking them in a dark closet by themselves.

When banks throw a tantrum, thousands become jobless and homeless.

That problem is solved by revolution.

[mangez merde]

02:31 AM on 05/01/2012

Please feel sorry for us.

The 1% is so disadvantaged in American society. Our lives are so difficult.

You 99% have too much anyway.

Can we borrow $6,877,363,754,433,325,782,443,896,045,678 ????

[mangez merde]

02:29 AM on 05/01/2012

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We want our AIG back.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!

[moonlit]

02:18 AM on 05/01/2012

Just move your money to a credit union. And stop using a credit card.

[BabaLou7]

11:27 PM on 04/30/2012

This is such a mainstream media surface analysis as to be totally useless in gauging the MASSIVE and fundamental global financial changes just on the horizon. Come on with your child's play journalism!!!

[optomist1]

07:29 PM on 04/30/2012

The sooner the Charlatans of Fraud Street are prosecuted and punished the better for all countires and economies

[Joseph LeCompte]

06:43 PM on 04/30/2012

Irresponsible home owners DIDN'T write trillions of crappy derivatives. They didn't force banks to leverage 40-1. They didn't get bailed out either. Do not except the lies Wall Street is pushing. They messed the world up.

[jaslyn]

10:07 PM on 04/30/2012

it's the big lie they've created to take off some of the heat.

[BabaLou7]

11:28 PM on 04/30/2012

You TELL 'em! That's the REAL story!!! Not the pap of the 7 and a half points that matter!!! Fanned and faved!

[kfdan]

06:08 PM on 04/30/2012

Dodd Frank was suppose to control the big banks and their ability to risk speculate at public expense ... it was weakened by underfunding regulatory agencies and by providing loop-holes large enough to defang the Act. Under both Democratic and Republican support in the House and Senate, the banks have been writing their ticket toward un-regulated bank speculation... that very condition that brought the banks to insolvency in the first place. A one page document, as Volcker suggested ... with no loop-holes, is the only way to stop this massive financial scam that allows the elite to rob the rest of the country's population of what little money they possess. The 'too big to fail' banks need to be broken up, Glass-Steagal needs to be brought back, and the Volcker rule needs to be given teeth.

[optomist1]

07:30 PM on 04/30/2012

c/o the WSJ....Dodd -Frank was emasculated by +$500M in Fraud Street lobbying

[kfdan]

12:05 AM on 05/01/2012

Agreed ... and one of the very reasons that corporate lobbying needs to be controlled. America will never recover with a busted middle class and it will not recover with the financial elite running wild over the public good.

[baker80]

05:17 PM on 04/30/2012

Haha I love the title of this article!

[catbite]

04:12 PM on 04/30/2012

Break up the banks.

[duhtruth]

04:03 PM on 04/30/2012

Everybody!! One, two , three, Happy Days are Here Again da da da da da da ...........

[Kenz300]

03:18 PM on 04/30/2012

The big banks need to be broken up into 2 or 3 smaller banks.

Move your money. Credit Unions treat you better and loan locally.

The big banks loan internationally.

[RTGerdes]

02:53 PM on 04/30/2012

I have a blinding contempt for the Obama administration's overreach, over regulation, and bank examiners and bankers. In the end, we have no one to blame but ourselves for electing a collective body of do nothings. The administration desperately needs small businesses to create jobs. That is undeniable. So small businesses are suppose to get individual's to go out and risk everything to open a business and the government in return is going to offer enough regulation to strangle a horse and then make sure through policy that no capital is available to the business.

[olitenup]

10:32 PM on 04/30/2012

No capital is available now. Try starting a business.

[avg american]

02:23 PM on 04/30/2012

"No fair! yell the big banks from their time-out chairs, in response to the JOBS Act, which may not apply to them. If the little banks can write research reports on CrapStock.com, then we can, too. They're pressing their regulators to let them out of time-out, at least on the smallish companies covered by the JOBS Act." ..." the regulators will probably cave, like they do. But just in case they don't, then the big banks will use all of their powers and all of their skills to keep the little banks from enjoying their new privilege, single-handedly thwarting the will of Congress. "




State-run-banks-would-fix-all-of-this.

Our regulators have proven over and over that they cannot regulate or control or manage the big greedy gluttonous banks.
They-cannot-do-it.
The United States needs state run banks and it is turning into a national security issue.

When are Americans going to say "we worked our asses off for our retirement and WallStreet and the banking industry don’t have the right to take our money from us."
Derivatives’gambling hasn’t been fixed yet and it’s not going to be regulated if left up our 9%-approval-rating congress. They-are-the-1%-legislating-for-the-1%-not-for-us.


Looks like TimothyGeithner was trying to prep us for another crash in this article.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/25/timothy-geithner-wheels-justice-turning-now_n_1454235.html