FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
Contact: Christopher Elliott, 202-618-6433, press@bettermarkets.com
Washington, D.C. – Dennis M. Kelleher, President and Chief Executive Officer of Better Markets, issued the following statement regarding the Financial Reform Policy released today by presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg:
“We welcome presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg’s financial reform policy released today. As we did in 2016, we have long advocated for all presidential candidates to release comprehensive, specific and concrete plans detailing how they will protect hardworking Americans on Main Street from Wall Street’s high-risk gambling.
“First and foremost, Bloomberg’s plan explicitly rejects the dangerous and mindless deregulation of the Trump administration, which has used Wall Street’s wish list as its policy guide, endangering America’s families, our financial system and economy. Second, his plan directly addresses the three key goals of the Dodd Frank financial reform law: prevent financial crashes or their severity; protect financial consumers and investors; and refocus finance away from socially useless and dangerous bonus-boosting activities back to supporting the real economy, jobs and growth.
“The Bloomberg plan focuses on strengthening the pillars of financial reform: capital, proprietary trading, living wills, stress tests, and nonbank regulation. It also addresses other critical areas in need of reform like credit rating agencies, consolidated audit trail, corporate disclosure, predatory high-frequency trading, the Department of Labor’s fiduciary duty rule, and CFPB jurisdiction.
“Most importantly, Bloomberg plans to aggressively go after corporate crime and individual lawbreakers, including executives and supervisors, with a dedicated group of experts at the Justice Department while limiting the use of bogus settlements and non-prosecution agreements. This is long overdue and desperately needed.
“However, while welcome, the devil is in the details and more details are needed. For example, what will be the quantity and quality of equity capital? How will he “restore the Volcker Rule”? How will he regulate systemically significant non-banks in the shadow banking system? While encouraging all other candidates to do the same, we look forward to more details from candidate Bloomberg.”
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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.com.
