“If the regulators finish the rule soon, the Wells Fargo incident will be fresh in their minds. Marcus Stanley, policy director for Americans for Financial Reform, is counting on Wells Fargo acting as a shield against bank lobbying. ‘I think it will make it more difficult,’ Stanley said. ‘What I’m hoping is that it’ll make it easier for us to lobby to make it tougher.’”
“The bad news, for Ms Warren’s supporters, is that new laws will be hard to pass. The good news is that the existing laws, including Dodd-Frank and the SEC’s governing legislation, already give future appointees all the authority they will need. What they do not believe they need is Wall Street experience. Marcus Stanley, policy director of the union-backed Americans for Financial Reform, the investor group, speaks for many progressives in stating: ‘We are reversing the status quo of many decades.’”
AFR’s Marcus Stanley writes: “The 2008 crisis was catastrophic for the global economy not simply because nonbank financial institutions failed, but because the problems in nonbanks spread throughout the financial system and threatened to bring down giant megabanks that combined commercial and investment banking, such as Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America. Glass-Steagall firewalls between Wall Street trading markets and ordinary commercial banking are directly relevant to stopping this kind of contagion.”
“[W]ith populist anger aimed at Wall Street during this presidential election season rising, the ‘carried interest loophole,’ which allows the managers of private-equity firms to pay a lower tax rate, is back in the spotlight. ‘This year is just different. There has been a populist surge politically in both parties,’ said Marcus Stanley, policy director for Americans for Financial Reform. ‘Having the wealthiest people in the financial system paying a lower rate than everyone else is even harder to swallow. People realize that it doesn’t have to be like this.'”
““This is pretty clearly an improvement of the 2011 rule, but the 2011 rule was very weak,” said Marcus Stanley, the policy director at the advocacy organization Americans for Financial Reform. Mr. Stanley said he had hoped that banks would have to hold back pay for more than four years because big losses on bank investments can often take longer than that to materialize.”
“[Banks] are turning to the 79th page of a 2013 document titled “Regulatory Capital Rules” and looking at footnote 151. That reference effectively lets banks hold less capital against shorter-term derivatives… ‘This is classic regulatory arbitrage,’ said Marcus Stanley, policy director for public-interest group Americans for Financial Reform.”
“The [Metlife] decision is ‘really potentially damaging to the framework Dodd Frank set up to oversee nonfinancial institutions,’ said Marcus Stanley, policy director for Americans for Financial Reform. If the ruling is upheld, ‘FSOC would have a very hard time designating anybody in the future, even when they truly do pose risk to the financial system…'”
“Marcus Stanley, policy director of the public advocacy group Americans for Financial Reform, said that the shift toward taking a long view with executive compensation is anecdotal at best… ‘From our perspective there hasn’t really been a fundamental change,’ Stanley said. ‘What we would want to see is something that moves closer to the old partnership model, where you stay genuinely at risk for a long period of time and where you’re just as sensitive to the downside… as the short-term upside incentives.'”
Marcus Stanley, policy director of Americans for Financial Reform, analyzes the role of Wall Street reform in the 2016 presidential contest. He also discusses President Obama’s remarks about the regulatory reforms adopted since the 2008 financial crisis.
“‘The credit-rating agencies got away so easy, given what they did,’ said Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform, a nonpartisan coalition in favor of stronger Wall Street regulation. ‘The happy days are here again. There’s not really been an interruption of the profit flow.'”