Meredith Whitney on banks, new regulation and the burden of QE2

Regional Bank Profits to Get Hit by New Regulations: Whitney Regional banks are going to become less profitable because of tighter financial regulations and are likely to close thousands of bank branches to cut costs, analyst Meredith Whitney told CNBC. More layoffs are inevitable. She predicts two million layoffs among the nation's 19.4 million government workers.
QE isn't helping, she said:
“It seems as if the market expects Oprah Winfrey to jump out of a cake and give away free cars with QE2,” Whitney said. “Does QE2 help middle America? No, it just makes everything more expensive for middle America. I think that is a complicated policy and a dangerous policy to take things that much further.”