“Four years after passage in July, 2010 of the grandiloquently-named Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act we’re pretty much back to square one in terms of fixing the major causes of the financial meltdown of 2008-2009.
“Yes, a very few positive things have happened. Thanks mainly to prodding from Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarullo, the Fed has set modestly higher capital requirements and reduced leverage ratios for the big banks. Still fighting Wall Street resistance at every turn, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau continues to do good work.
“But what else? The solemn pronouncements coming from Washington that “Too Big to Fail” is a thing of the past are ludicrous. The megabanks are bigger than ever, and are behaving exactly the way they did when, one year before the crash, Citibank’s CEO Charles Prince declared, “as long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up to dance.” And the music being made these days while the banks gamble with FDIC-insured money and expand trading in risky derivatives is truly beautiful for the dancers. Megabank profits are soaring.”
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“A national poll conducted by Greenberg, Quinlan Rosner Research, on behalf of Better Markets, shows that almost 90 percent of the American people believe the federal government has failed to rein in Wall Street. In addition, “sixty four percent of all voters and 62 percent of voters that own stock believe the stock market is rigged for insiders and people who know how to manipulate the system.”
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Read Full Forbes article by Ted Kaufman here
