President Obama on Wednesday unveiled his long-anticipated plan to restructure how banks and other firms are regulated in the hope of preventing another financial collapse.
The far-reaching effort would reorder the roles of some key agencies to try to tighten government supervision of the financial sector. It would also toughen up standards for big financial firms and create a new agency dedicated to consumer protection.
“We did not choose how this crisis began. But we do have a choice in the legacy this crisis leaves behind,” Obama said. “So today, my administration is proposing a sweeping overhaul of the financial regulatory system, a transformation on a scale not seen since the reforms that followed the Great Depression.”
Obama proposed getting rid of the embattled Office of Thrift Supervision and merge it with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, according to details released Wednesday.
The OTS has been on the hot seat for months for its role as the overseer of American International Group (AIG, Fortune 500) and failed lenders IndyMac and Washington Mutual. The comptroller’s office is a Treasury Department bureau that regulates national banks.
President Obama wants to expand the powers of the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department.
Obama called for the creation of a council of regulators chaired by the Treasury secretary to work alongside the Fed to monitor system-wide risk.
The Treasury would also officially keep powers it has already been wielding to approve government action aimed at saving a company that’s teetering on the verge of collapse.
Obama said regulators had been charged with “seeing the trees, not the forest.”
“As a result, the failure of one large firm threatened the viability of many others; the effect multiplied,” Obama said. “There was no system in place that was prepared for this kind of outcome. And more importantly, no on has been charged with preventing it.”
In addition, Obama proposed the establishment of a new watchdog agency aimed at protecting consumers from deceptive or dangerous mortgages, credit cards and other financial products.
(Source: CNN)
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10 Responses
And the deafening silence continues. Don’t you see where this is going? This has all been done before. This has all the ear marks of the National Socialist party of Hitler yimach shemo. How far will we let him go before we wake up? It may already be too late.
mrsk – you say “This has all the ear marks of the National Socialist party of Hitler yimach shemo”
Your comment is silly – it is ignorant, irresponsible, disrespectful and, quite frankly, stupid. As the child of a Jew who lived as a young adult through the Weimar Republic in Germany, and then into the Nazi years, and as one who is steeped in the history of that period, I also find your comment insulting to the memory of those Yidden who lived through that horror – embarrassing too.
This isn’t all that controversial since it has bipartisan support and the support of the Wall Street establishment which is heavily involved in both parties. There’s no hiddush in any of this.
The current system didn’t work out to well (e.g., when major regulated banks and companies made naked swaps which are more like “bets” than “investments” and managed to lose more money then they had). If a company gets the benefits of government regulation (such as having the government guarantee deposits), it needs to be regulated to taxpayers won’t get stuck with the company’s losses.
Based on the number of private firms, such as Goldman Sachs, asking to be regulated, rather than demanding less regulation, it seems the private sector likes the idea of a stable playing field for them to “play” in.
Now if only they could find a way to make it illegal to manage other people’s money while being stupid!
The only “sweeping” many many people would like to see is Obama & his gang of liberal left thugs to be SWEPT out of office ASAP!
Recession is when your neighbor loses his job.
Depression is what you lose your job.
Recovery is when Obama loses his job!!!
Mark,
What do you comments have to do with prohibiting financial institutions who rely on taxpayer funds from taking risks. If they want to gamble, they can do so with their own money. You might not have noted that all of Bush’s economic advisors, and all of Obama’s economic advisors, went to school together, worked in the same firms, and socialize together. Had McCain (or perhaps any Republican except for Paul), or any other Democrat (except for perhaps Kucinich), the results would have been the same. There really isn’t a whole lot of disagreement over the core issues on this.
Your tirade is irrelevant. Obama will fail because his macroeconomic policy is seriously flawed and he won’t be able to end the recession.
But no one is opposed to regulation of the financial services industry, including the companies involved.
Well, Wolffman, at least I got you howling. The silence has to stop. I am neither stupid nor ignorant of history. I would like very much to be wrong but I fear I am not. This president is a national socialist whether he admits to that or not. National Socialism leads to facism. Any criticism of this President or his policies are attacked vehemently. The media are practically the propaganda arm of this administration. The longer this goes unchecked and the more control the government takes of our lives (because of course they know better) the closer we come to socialism/facism. This is not a good thing.
akuperma
how are you enjoying your “hope” and “change?” has it been good for you?
your beloved savior needs to stay out of the peoples business. you could keep blaming bush 1, bush 2, reagan, nixon, eisenhower etc., all you want but the bottom line is this messiah has done NOTHING that would help anyone other than those who gave to his campaign fund.
I am glad to see you think he will fail (Praise G-D there is hope!!) and I hope you are calling upon your elected officials in W’ton to oppose all his bills as their you know what is on the line in 2010 and beyond.
Dear Charliehall: B. Hussain Obama’s policy are antithetical to a strong US economy, the principles by which this country has been (successfully) run, that the founding fathers established, and to national security. His policies are also incompatible with a secure Israel. Not only do we have to hope he fails, we have to daven that he fails. Failure of his policies is necessary if we are to keep America safe.
Hussain’s approach is amazingly similar to Hitler’s when he took office. He blamed his predecessor for EVERYTHING that was wrong. He nationaalized everything, including the auto industry and the media. He found a scapegoat. And in both cases it was us. We are responsible for the problems in the middle east because we act like Nazis towards the Palestinians. Hussain then sent his Joseph Goebels with a southern drawl to the area to accuse us of treating the palestinians like savages.
Go out there Germans and riot against he Jews. Hurt them, kill them, destroy their shuls because they are responsible for the lousey economy of the Weimar Republic. Go out there Paelestinians and riot against the Jews. Hurt them, kill them… they oppress you and treat you like savages.
Karl Marx was not wrong in his surmising that the greed factor in capitalism would make it like a snake that eventually consumes it’s own tail.
America is a capitalist nation. Capitalism is tied to it’s major corporations. When the most major of corporations go belly up and experience lay offs and problems with capital like we have seen this past year, there is no America. Unless any of us wants to put up our own money to keep things afloat, the government is next on the list to provide such support.
I would not worry about any Socialist worries as in America, the bourgeoisie are benefitting from receiving funding they did not earn, and are being supported by the proletariat. This is not Marxism, which is not strictly Socialism, either.
It is fair to say the government is helping out Wall Street billionaires as well as poor, single parent households. The funding is just different (cash versus student loans are unprecedented levels and low interest rates)
Just a thought and not an endorsement either way.