Glass Steagall was 32 pages. Proposed Volcker Rule regs are 300 pages.

How Many Can Refi vs. How Many Qualify There was a story in the Wall Street Journal wondering “But if rates are so low, why isn’t demand for new loans picking up? For one, most borrowers who could refinance probably did so last year, when rates fell below 5% in March, August, and December. Many [...]

Rate shoppers and watchers should note that the lowest rates on official record are here now. The chart below shows rates from June 2010 back to April 1971, when Freddie Mac started officially tracking 30 year mortgage rates. The high was in October 1981, when then Fed chairman Paul Volcker was hiking rates to battle [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Ben Bernanke was confirmed by a 16-7 Senate Banking Committee vote to lead the Fed for a second four year term. Next steps will be in January. Some details from Reuters below as well as additional comments: The Senate is not expected to take up Bernanke’s nomination for a second four-year term at the helm [...]

Make no mistake: the lowest rates on official record are here now. The chart below shows rates from December 2009 back to April 1971, when Freddie Mac started officially tracking 30 year mortgage rates. The high was in October 1981, when then Fed chairman Paul Volcker was hiking rates to battle inflation (more on this [...]

A Marketwatch story today said that “Bernanke may set the modern-day record for senators who oppose his nomination. The record is held by Paul Volcker with 16 ‘no’ votes in 1984.” Remember that Volcker was dealing with unprecedented inflation levels during his term leading up to 1984 and hiked rates massively to fight the inflation. [...]

Today is the 30th anniversary of the Fed rate system as we know it. After their October 6, 1979 FOMC meeting, the Fed announced a drastic change to monetary policy. Up until that time the money supply fluctuated with business cycles and rates were relatively fixed—the Fed Funds Rate was only allowed to float about [...]

Treasury Secretary nominee Tim Geithner is in confirmation hearings today with a vote set for tomorrow to see if he will be confirmed as Treasury Secretary. The big issue is that Geithner was late on $34,000 in self-prepared taxes. Thankfully lawmakers know the bigger issues are billions in market losses, and as former Fed chairman [...]