Tag Archives: Volcker Rule

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AFR in the News: Fed votes to scale back hated ‘Volcker Rule’ on Wall Street (NY Post)

“’What is critical is that simplification not undermine the core principle at stake — that taxpayer-supported banking groups, of any size, not participate in proprietary trading at odds with the basic public and customers’ interests,’ Paul Volcker said in a statement…

‘This proposal is no minor set of technical tweaks to the Volcker Rule, but an attempt to unravel fundamental elements of the response to the 2008 financial crisis, when banks financed their gambling with taxpayer-insured deposits,’ said Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform.”

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AFR Statement: Proposal to Overhaul Volcker Rule Would Unravel Key Response to Financial Crisis

This proposal is no minor set of technical tweaks to the Volcker Rule, but an attempt to unravel fundamental elements of the response to the 2008 financial crisis, when banks financed their gambling with taxpayer-insured deposits. If implemented, these proposals could turn the Volcker Rule into a dead letter, a regulation that would not meaningfully restrict trading activities.

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AFR Statement: Omnibus Contains Yet More Gifts to Wall Street

“The Omnibus budget package contains several policy riders designed to benefit Wall Street investment funds and big banks at the expense of the public. One provision in the omnibus allows Business Development Companies (BDCs), a type of private equity fund sold directly to retail customers, to double their permitted fund leverage from the current 1-1 level (one dollar of borrowed money for each dollar of investor equity) to 2-1. BDCs are already the beneficiary of regulatory exemptions since conventional closed-end mutual funds can only leverage 1-2, or borrow one dollar per two dollars of investor equity…”

S 2155: A Gift to Wall Street!

Bipartisan majorities in the House and the Senate chose to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression by handing the bank lobby a package of deregulatory gifts, increasing the risks to financial stability and the likelihood of consumer abuse, including racial discrimination in lending. This legislation, signed into law on May 24, won’t serve families or communities, nor is it policy that most people support. But Wall Street and its friends in Congress had a tougher time than they ever expected because Americans who know better refused to let the bill pass without a fight.

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AFR in the News: Congress rides to the rescue of thriving bankers (Politico)

“I don’t see the real-world problem [the bill] is trying to solve, except the problem of bankers’ not making enough money,” said Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform… [Stanley] said competition alone shouldn’t be the goal. “If we didn’t require airlines to do anything before opening up a new air route, there might be more airlines, but there might be more plane crashes too.”