Did The President FINALLY Wake Up?

I’m not sure I believe what I’m hearing on CNBC coming out of The President’s mouth.

Is he really listening to Paul Volcker?  Finally?

Here’s what I heard that I liked – a lot.

1.   Limit the Scope – The President and his economic team will work with Congress to ensure that no bank or financial institution that contains a bank will own, invest in or sponsor a hedge fund or a private equity fund, or proprietary trading operations unrelated to serving customers for its own profit.

Did I really read that?  REALLY?  I’ve been saying this for more than two years, and FINALLY we are hearing it out of the administration. 

IF YOU WANT TO TRADE FOR YOUR OWN ACCOUNT THEN DO SO WITH YOUR OWN CAPITAL IN A FASHION THAT CANNOT BE SUBJECT TO A TAXPAYER BACKSTOP!

This is EXACTLY what Paul Volcker, myself and a few others have been calling for.  It is the essence of Glass-Steagall.  It is the proper role of government to grant permission to use the sovereign credit only for the purpose of regulated lending and deposit-taking with strict supervision to prevent lies, scams, schemes, evasion of reserve requirements and fraud. 

As I have said repeatedly with taxpayer guarantees come responsibility to act in a responsible fashion and this means no proprietary trading with taxpayer backstops.

2.   Limit the Size – The President also announced a new proposal to limit the consolidation of our financial sector.  The President’s proposal will place broader limits on the excessive growth of the market share of liabilities at the largest financial firms, to supplement existing caps on the market share of deposits.

YES!  Look, AIG was not gambling with sovereign credit – but it was "too big to fail" precisely because it was permitted to write liabilities against which it held insufficient capital.  If it had been a small company nobody would have cared.

But it wasn’t a small company.  It was a freaking huge monstrosity that threatened the stability of the system as a whole. 

Now here’s my message to Congress:

PASS THIS, PASS IT NOW, AND PASS IT FAST.  NO DAMN EXCUSES – OR YOU’RE FIRED!

There remains one further critical step that must be taken:

We must INSIST as citizens that those in the financial industry – top to bottom, starting at the top (including The Federal Reserve) – who intentionally concealed the risks of these "products" and the "credit quality" (or lack thereof) in them are investigated and when appropriate indicted and prosecuted.

EACH AND EVERY FINANCIAL FIRM MUST BE SUBJECT TO A FULL FORENSIC AUDIT WITH ALL MISDEEDS DISCOVERED THEREIN TURNED OVER TO A GRAND JURY – PERIOD!

THIS INCLUDES "MARK TO FANTASY" ACCOUNTING BS, OFF BALANCE SHEET GAMES AND ALL OTHER FORMS OF DISTORTION AND LIES!

STOP THE LOOTING AND START PROSECUTING!

To the Citizens of this nation:  You have just been given the MEANS to stop the crap that got us into this economic mess. 

GET OFF YOUR ASS, PHONE, FAX AND PROTEST IN PERSON DEMANDING ALL OF THE ABOVE HAPPEN RIGHT NOW – OR SHUT THE HELL UP NOW AND FOREVER MORE ABOUT THE ECONOMY SUCKING!