Let’s do those stress tests again.
By Daniel at 23 January, 2010, 9:36 am
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This time let the real regulators — the FDIC and not the Fed or Treasury — take the lead. Let’s have clean audits of the toxic assets at their market values, public exposure of the AIG e-mails — which are public property — and a serious review of the documents underlying all those bad mortgages and mortgage-backed-securities. The big banks should be made to shrink, under FDIC supervision. Outright bans and high taxes are the right deterrent for unsafe practices. And prosecution is the remedy for fraud.
Somehow I doubt that our big bankers want to go through this. Maybe they’ll simply retire, removing at a stroke the biggest eyesore on the American political scene — and a big obstacle to both financial reform and an effective economic recovery program.
Another good sign emerged today. According to The Washington Post, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner opposed Volcker’s approach, and he got beaten. This sentence is telling: “Industry officials … said they were startled and disheartened that Geithner was overruled, in part because they supported the more moderate approach Geithner proposed last year.”
“Startled” and “disheartened” are good signs. Even better, we have headlines this morning that the secretary is fighting back behind the scenes. ABC News reports: “Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has reservations about President Obama’s new proposal to limit the size and scope of the nation’s banks, sources tell ABC News. Specifically, the sources say, Geithner is worried that the proposed limits could damage the competitiveness of U.S. firms with their global competitors.”
Competitiveness? That bit of malarkey is a big-bank lobby talking point, nothing more. Its use here reveals precisely the problem that has faced Team Obama from the beginning: They gave the Treasury to a close ally of the biggest banks.
With today’s news, Geithner’s loyalties are completely clear. The next step, in that matter, is up to the president.
- JanB
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