Washington, D.C. – The report by the Federal Reserve on the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank only highlights the need for federal regulators to tighten oversight of banks as soon as possible to both remedy the errors of the past, and to forestall further financial contagion. At the same time, a fully independent probe of the Fed’s actions, including its leadership, remains vital.
WASHINGTON-D.C. — A lawsuit filed by the Wall Street lobby attempts to use the increasing corrosion of the judiciary by right-wing judges to enshrine in law a right to discriminate, according to Americans for Financial Reform, a broad coalition of organizations that includes civil rights and racial justice groups.
“When we talk about the [North Carolina] bathroom bills of 2016 and 2017 compared to now, my first response is, well, they haven’t felt that the public pressure that they would be feeling to do something is worth more than the financial benefit they have from doing nothing,” said Mandla Deskins, an advocacy manager for Take on Wall Street, an activist coalition that pushes for financial reform. “That is the calculation that I would assume banks are always making,” Deskins added, “because it’s not like they have some long-standing position against hate.”
The financial cycle is a concept developed by economists to understand the reasons why finance-driven growth can be self-defeating. Policymakers need to rebalance our response to recessions and financial crises to prevent any repetition of the experience of 2008-2009, in which benefits flowed to Wall Street, not ordinary Americans.
AFR sent a letter to Congress opposing a bill that would severely weaken stress testing–a key element of bank supervision and oversight.