“Uh-oh, everybody: Bankers are warning that the U.S. economy could be in deep trouble. Not because bankers wrecked it again, like that last time, but because we are being mean to bankers.
Fortunately, these bankers are probably wrong.
Like they do, bank flaks have rushed to warn that the higher bank capital requirements proposed on Tuesday by the Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation will slow down lending and economic growth, make U.S. banks less competitive against European competitors and be cruel to puppies and kittens.”
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“’These are banks that on average have profits that exceed $4 billion per quarter, or $16 billion per year,’ notes Dennis Kelleher, CEO of Better Markets, a financial-reform advocacy group in Washington. ‘At most, it would impact profits less than 10 percent per year for each of the next five years. So the capital requirement is laughably low.’
That $89 billion is also a loogie in the Pacific compared to the estimated $12.8 trillion the financial crisis cost the U.S. economy, according to a Better Markets study.
‘When they say financial reform designed to protect the American people and prevent another crisis hurts growth or employment, they completely ignore that the last financial collapse and the next will do more harm to growth, employment and the standard of living of all Americans than any rule or regulation or all of the rules or regulations,’ Kelleher says. ‘They never mention that.’”
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Read full Huffington Post article here
