Bank stocks are taking the rest of the market down with them today following Obama’s bank regulation proposal announcement. He calls for an end to government backing for banks that engage in proprietary trading. His proposal would have to be approved by congress. Earlier today, Mike Konczal at NewDeal2.0 wrote a piece about the likely [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Glass Steagall’
Former Fed Chair Paul Volcker Is Right About Bank Reform
We missed this BusinessWeek interview with Paul Volcker over the holidays but after reading it, we’re in his corner on bank reform and said something very similar earlier in December when McCain proposed reinstating Glass Steagall. It’s just that Volcker is much more definitive about it. He clarified that he’s not advocating an outright return [...]
John McCain: I Have An Economic Plan, It’s Good (part 10)
Yesterday Senators John McCain (R-Arizona) and Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) proposed reinstating Glass Steagall, the Depression-era body of financial regulations that, among other things, kept traditional banking activities like deposits and lending separate from more sophisticated activities like securities trading and insurance. Glass Steagall was repealed by the Gramm Leach Bliley Act in 1999, which enabled [...]
Big Bank Deposits Outpace Loan Growth (graphs). What Does ‘Too Big To Fail’ Mean?
Fortune reports that big bank deposits have outpaced loans in the year ended June 30, 2009. These two graphs from the story show loan/deposit stats among top banks and market share of deposits for big vs. rest of banks—also below are key stats from the story. This isn’t to say it’s all Evil Banker Greed, [...]
A Brief, Non-Technical Summary Of The Financial Crisis
The financial crisis that began in August 2007 and continues today (October 2009) has—at least for now—brought consumer banking back to “savings and loan” basics. Up to the 1980s, before loan securitization found its footing, consumer banking was community focused, bank reps knew their clients’ current and projected finances intimately, and funded home loans from [...]
Does BofA CEO Ken Lewis Want To Break Up The Bank?
Is Ken Lewis suggesting a rebirth of Glass Steagall? If so, the Grave of Phil Gramm’s must be turning over. And also the special interests of Gramm’s decades-long crusade to deregulate banking must have gotten to him, as the story that started this rumor has been updated. Lewis said something of the sort after a [...]
Robert Rubin’s Legacy After GS, Treasury, Citi
Years ago when I was working for UBS, I read this book on Goldman Sachs, because I wanted to see how their culture had evolved up to the IPO stage—the book came out the same year as their IPO. Our company had been a private partnership (Brinson Partners) that sold to UBS a few years [...]
Chase Buys WAMU for $1.9b After It Fails, Gets WAMU & Bear For $3.1b
After its bargain $1.9b acquisition of WAMU’s deposits and retail bank branch network today, JP Morgan Chase is solidified as a dominant force amidst the global banking chaos. This follows their $1.2 billion acquisition of investment banking giant Bear Stearns on May 29. The WAMU deal came after the FDIC seized WAMU last night following [...]
Did Phil Gramm Kill The Economy? Will He Be Treasury Secretary?
Back in June, Portfolio.com released tournament brackets where users can vote on who killed the economy. Even though blame can’t rest with a single person or entity, this is a fun tool that’s still on their most-read list. Interestingly, former senator and current UBS investment banking executive Phil Gramm was not even on the list. [...]
Top McCain Economic Advisor: If You’re Not Republican, You’re “Economically Illiterate” and A “Whiner”
Up until July, former Texas senator and now vice chairman of UBS Securities, Phil Gramm was John McCain’s top economic advisor. Then he called America a “nation of whiners” facing “a mental recession” and was pushed behind the scenes. But he’s still actively supporting the campaign, like today at an event close to the GOP [...]
