WASHINGTON, D.C.— Dennis Kelleher, President, CEO and Co-founder of Better Markets, issued the following statement in response to Federal Reserve (Fed) Governor Michelle Bowman’s announcement of her new Wall Street staff:

“Today’s reported announcement that Vice Chair nominee Fed Gov. Michelle Bowman—a vocal advocate for Wall Street’s preferred policies—has hired two Wall Street lobbyists and a Goldman Sachs Vice President for her staff is a slap in the face to the American people who have suffered grievously from the Fed’s past failures to properly and adequately regulate and supervise Wall Street’s biggest and most dangerous banks. These hires make it clear that Wall Street’s wishes will once again be the Fed’s priorities, and that another financial crash is inevitable.

“That’s what happened in the early 2000s when the Fed’s misguided belief that Wall Street could regulate itself directly led to the catastrophic 2008 crash. That’s why the position of Vice Chair for Supervision at the Fed was created in the Dodd-Frank Act: so that the Fed would prioritize protecting Main Street families, the financial system, and the economy from the excesses and high-risk activities of Wall Street. Instead, the Fed is putting the ‘kinder, gentler treatment’ for the banks that happened during Trump’s first administration (and which directly caused the 2023 banking crisis) on steroids. For the so-called ‘community banker’ on the Fed to do this and de facto hand over the regulation of Wall Street to Wall Street adds insult to injury.

“What the Fed, Wall Street and its many allies fail to understand is that tension if not conflict between Wall Street’s profit maximizing banks and regulators responsible for protecting Main Street is inevitable, healthy, and, indeed, a sign of success. The interests of Wall Street and Main Street may overlap at times but, as former Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack acknowledged, Wall Street simply ‘cannot control’ itself and regulators ‘have to step in and control [Wall] Street.’ When the Fed and other regulators fail to do that, when they let Wall Street regulate Wall Street as they have in the past, crises, crashes and bailouts are inevitable. That’s what’s going to happen again as a result of the Fed abdicating its duties to protect Main Street from Wall Street: America is going to suffer from another horrific crash in the coming years because Wall Street regulating itself is just a different way of saying Wall Street won’t be properly regulated.”

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Better Markets is a non-profit, non-partisan, and independent organization founded in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to promote the public interest in the financial markets, support the financial reform of Wall Street and make our financial system work for all Americans again. Better Markets works with allies—including many in finance—to promote pro-market, pro-business and pro-growth policies that help build a stronger, safer financial system that protects and promotes Americans’ jobs, savings, retirements and more. To learn more, visit www.bettermarkets.org.