The End of Wall Street as We Know It

Newsweek ^ | January 22, 2010 | Michael Hirsh

[Steelfish]

January 21, 2010

The End of Wall Street as We Know It

Michael Hirsh

After ignoring Big Paul for a year, Obama finally listened. The result is the end of Wall Street as we know it. Surrounded by economic heavyweights called into the White House, President Obama announced today before the TV cameras that he wasn’t announcing anything new. At least that’s what his top administration officials indicated to the media in a “background” phone call intended to put the best possible spin on things.

The administration officials declared that the new—whoops, I mean, additional—proposal today was in the spirit of what they themselves had already put forward last June and what the House and Senate, in consultation with the Obama-ites, had already inserted in their bills.

That’s the official story. It’s utter nonsense. The actual story is that today’s proposal is totally new, far more radical than anything Obama and his top officials, mainly chief economic adviser Larry Summers and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, have proposed in the past. Indeed, they’ve been actively avoiding it for the better part of their first year in office.

The president was gracious enough today to credit the man responsible for it—“we’re calling it the Volcker rule after the tall guy behind me,” he said—but what Obama didn’t say was that, until now, former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker has been virtually ignored by his administration.

Nearly a year before the president’s announcement, Volcker had proposed barring major commercial banks that enjoy federal-deposit guarantees away from big-time speculative or “proprietary” trading—acting like a hedge fund, in effect, with taxpayer-backed money. When I interviewed Volcker about this last summer, he acknowledged that the president "obviously decided not to accept" his recommendations.

[ari-freedom]

banks/finance, doctors and Israel are the enemy. Guess the connection.

[algernonpj]

Since the reversal of Glass-Stegall, the banks have been irresponsible.

People seem to forget that Glass-Stegall of 1933 was put in place to curb the dark side of human nature..., what Bastiat refers to as the ‘common tendency’ of ‘mankind’ to ‘live and prosper at the expense of others’.

[diogenes ghost]

The Creature from Jekyll Island will not be killed by Obama.

It's ultimate goals are similar to his, he CANNOT survive without it's assistance.

There is more, much more, that has already been agreed to.

The monetary and political scientists ALWAYS have multiple scenarios in place, they will not be adversely affected.

Taxpayers, and the country, on the other hand.......