Obama Moves to Restrict Banks

WSJ ^ | January 21,2010 | JONATHAN WEISMAN And HENRY J. PULIZZI

[Stayfree]

The White House wants commercial banks that take deposits from customers to be barred from investing on behalf of the bank itself—what's known as proprietary trading—and said the administration will seek new limits on the size and concentration of financial institutions.

[Stayfree]

Attempt to stop program trading could be circumvented by setting up separate trading companies.

[Rutles4Ever]

This is like curing a headache by sending someone to the guillotine.

[illiac]

And the stock market declines (at this point -223).

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Not going to happen. Perhaps it will LOOK like they don’t own the hedge funds, but they will still control them. What a joke. Such would almost completely dry up liquidity in the markets. This president is deliberately trying to break this country into pieces under his iron fist. Who in his/her right mind voted for this guy?

[Woebama]

Meanwhile Banks remain empowered to borrow at 0% and lend to us via credit cards at 27% . . . and many can’t figure out how to make a profit doing it.

[Stayfree]

Agreed, but GS is still off $9.50 or 5.66%..

[Leftism is Mentally Deranged]

The communist in chief is trying to achieve his goal - complete control of the means of production (see communist manifesto) a little bit at a time, stealthily, so that the mind-numbed public won’t catch on.

[Sans-Culotte]

So, what will banks get out of holding people’s money? I guess they will have to start charging big fees for checking, etc. if all they are is a big storage facility.

[manc]

so he bails them out but now punishes them

if this is not bizarre I don’;t know what is

[Stayfree]

The @SS is about as stealthy as an elephant stomping on bubble wrap........

[Rennes Templar]

“...the administration will seek new limits on the size and concentration of __________”

Fill in the blank.

[hflynn]

I got 2 words for you Captain Zero, McCain - Feingold. You screw with big time with business there business will become screwing you big time.

[hflynn]

got 2 words for you Captain Zero, McCain - Feingold. You screw big time with business there business will become screwing you big time

[omega4412]

“...the administration will seek new limits on the size and concentration of __________”

Fill in the blank with any word except "government" or "unions"

[Nervous Tick]

>> So, what will banks get out of holding people’s money?

Well, instead of speculating with deposits, they could lend them back out to businesses that want to expand.

Unfortunately there aren’t so many of those right now.

This is why the Fed loose money policy is “pushing on a string”. All that low-cost money the Fed is lending to banks isn’t needed for loans — not only because banks don’t want to lend to risky borrowers, but also because there are fewer borrowers demanding loans.

So they invest “all that money” in the market (one way or another).

Instead of prohibiting banks from proprietary trading, the Fed should just stop pushing on the string. That ought to have the same effect.

[MrChips]

Control the banks. Right out of the Saul Alinsky playbook.

[onedoug]

FU, barry.

[GOP_Lady]

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[scooby321]

How do like your Obama now, Warren?

[Kid Shelleen]

from the article :
Over the fall, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who head's the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, met several times with Mr. Obama to discuss his ideas to limit the reach of the big banks.

If Volcker is behind this idea it might have some merit but I guess we will have to wait and see.