Volker Failing to Convince Admin To Enact New Glass Steagall

[SlowDownFast]

More "Change" you can make-believe in...

Volcker Fails to Sell a Bank Strategy

By LOUIS UCHITELLE
Published: October 20, 2009

Listen to a top economist in the Obama administration describe Paul A. Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman who endorsed Mr. Obama early in his election campaign and who stood by his side during the financial crisis.

“The guy’s a giant, he’s a genius, he is a great human being,” said Austan D. Goolsbee, counselor to Mr. Obama since their Chicago days. “Whenever he has advice, the administration is very interested.”

Well, not lately. The aging Mr. Volcker (he is 82) has some advice, deeply felt. He has been offering it in speeches and Congressional testimony, and repeating it to those around the president, most of them young enough to be his children.

He wants the nation’s banks to be prohibited from owning and trading risky securities, the very practice that got the biggest ones into deep trouble in 2008. And the administration is saying no, it will not separate commercial banking from investment operations.

“I am not pounding the desk all the time, but I am making my point,” Mr. Volcker said in one of his infrequent on-the-record interviews. “I have talked to some senators who asked me to talk to them, and if people want to talk to me, I talk to them. But I am not going around knocking on doors.”

read more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/business/21volcker.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1256148387-sKGuXQnYyZda/Lm461+RNA

[andym]

1. k+r

Remember it was Volcker's understanding of the economy and subsequent actions that restored the American economy in the 80s not Reagan's voodoo trickle down economics.

[AndyA]

2. I guess the banks own Congress and Obama.

Enjoying all that change, yet? (As your credit cards get canceled or get their interest rates hiked...)

[notesdev]

6. Obama's #1 donor: Goldman Sachs

as a great man once said: "You figgah it out"

[IrateCitizen]

7. Oh come on! Don't you know he's playing chess...

... while everyone else is playing checkers?

And how dare you badmouth a Democratic President on this site!! Haven't you got the meme that he can do nothing wrong, and anything that does go wrong is Bush's fault???

:sarcasm:

[DJ13]

3. I hate to say it, but it looks like Obama has be co-opted by the finance industry

[wuvuj]

5. ...and by the military...

...and by big pharma and insurance....big oil and coal?....once the sickness become ingrained...it is difficult to dislodge?

[theoldman]

4. After watching Frontline last night I am convinced all presidents

have been bought off by Wall Street. Wall Street is 80% Republican but they control the Democrats just as well.

[OllieLotte]

8. You would think that it would be obvious that we should

follow Volcker's advice on this.

[angryfirelord]

9. The guy who saw it coming

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_GSmQ0V4KE&feature=player_embedded

[SlowDownFast]

11. Excellent interview and synopsis.

Everyone should watch the above interview (from March) of Sen Byron Dorgan by Rachel Maddow.

Most interesting is the quote put forth of one Larry Summers - Obama's current economic advisor - at the time that the Graham/Leach/Bliley Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm-Leach-Bliley_Act) passed:

Summers:

"It was historic legislation that will enable American companies to compete in the New Economy."

Again, as I'd railed and railed here on DU (to hardly any avail), I knew where this was going as soon as I saw Obama's picks for his cabinet, with special attention to economic advisors, ie: Geithner/Summers.

Obama is either in over his head - or he was part of The Heist to begin with.

Either way-

Meet the new boss...

We are all debt slaves, again. The top 1% own us, our children and our childrens' children.

Democrat and Republican are two sides of the same coin. They are 99% all bought and paid for by lobbyists.

When will we ever learn?

Thanks for posting this and welcome to DU angryfirelord!

Are you one of the contributors/bloggers from Firedoglake?

[angryfirelord]

14. I agree

Unless we can get true progressive reform higher up, then there's really no point in voting for the two party system. I guess Washington said it best:

"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism."

I've never heard of FireDogLake before, so I'll have to check them out later.

[permabear]

10. Frontline had a great show this week

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/view/

Frontline had a great show this week, The Warning, in which a member of the Clinton administration, Brookskley Born, had come out strongly in favor of regulating the derivatives market, but Greenspan, Summers and Geithner all shut her down. Now we are seeing a similar warning coming from Volcker and now its Bernanke, Summers and Geithner who is shutting him down. We are going to end up with the same catastrophic result because our Democratic president is listening to the wrong advisors. Summers and Geithner got the deregulation issue wrong in the 90s and they aren't tough enough on the banks today. Volcker's warning is very prescient. We are dust if we don't follow his advice.

[SlowDownFast]

12. Yes, I posted this the other day here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=114x71271

Thanks for pointing it out, again!

Welcome to DU permabear!

I, too, am a "permabear", until such time that "the bezzle" is taken out of politics/economics and justice is served to those who perpetrated this Grand Looting.

[permabear]

13. Volcker is the man Obama needs to listen to

I've been looking for a new place to post. I was posting on a doom and gloom message board which branched out of the Daily Reckoning board, which was populated by a bunch of self described libertarians who were really fascist, racist, anarchists who loved guns more than their children. Pessimists about the economy don't have to be freaks. I remain a pessimist about the economy because we have lived a life of excess, debt, derivatives and deregulation, since the irresponsible presidency of Ronald Reagan. And unfortunately Ronald Reagan's foolish thinking carried over into the Clinton administration when he totally bought into the deregulation, unrestrained free trade philosophy of Greenspan, Summers and Geithner. Now we finally get another democratic president and who does he appoint to head his economic team but Geithner and Summers again, the same jokers that brought us the mess in the first place. Volcker understands the situation better than all of them. He is warning that if we don't do something serious about these massive banks, the whole thing is going to come crashing down again. And who is opposing Volcker's ideas, but Geithner and Summers. Gosh I wish Obama could see that Frontline show. If he did, he would overrule Geithner and Summers and implement everything Volcker and Born (from the Frontline show) wanted to implement.