“Only in the warped, distorted, Alice-in-Wonderland world of Wall Street would one think “Washington went to war against big Wall Street banks” or that “Washington won [the war] in a blowout,” as said today in a Politico article entitled “How Washington beat big Wall Street banks.” The author, Ben White, is a terrific reporter and there’s a lot interesting in and right about the article, but I disagree with the premise of it.
“It may be counterintuitive, but the article reflects a fairy tale Wall Street loves to push. Not only that they have been picked on and been under/are under enormous pressure (almost all unfair, undeserved and counterproductive) by US and global regulators, politicians and policy makers, but, hey, they’ve lost and Washington won, so, ease up. No need to take any further action against the ginormous global too-big-to-fail banks that are bigger, more interconnected and dangerous than they were before the last crisis that they caused. No. Enough’s been done.
“Indeed, according to the article, the war is over. The American people should move on to other things. Washington should declare victory and return to its past practices of coddling the beaten Wall Street banks and cashing their campaign contribution checks. Nothing to do or see here.
“Of course, that’s ridiculous. As I said to the author of the article, it is Wall Street that has been at and continues to be in all-out war with Washington and fighting financial regulation in every arena. It has been unrelenting and, too often, effective, to the benefit of Wall Street and the detriment of Main Street and the American people who continue to suffer from the economic wreckage of the last crisis Wall Street caused.”
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Read Dennis Kelleher’s full Huffington Post article here
