This afternoon Obama called for new restrictions on the “size and scope” of financial institutions. In what some are calling “Glass-Steagall Light” Obama proposed a “Volcker rule” that places restrictions on banks' ability to “invest in or sponsor a hedge fund or a private equity fund, or proprietary trading operations unrelated to serving customers.”
“If it’s a fight they want, it’s a fight I am ready to have” he said. Watch the Bloomberg clip here.
Leadership in this area will require a mandate of top down rules; negotiated principles are not likely to secure the changes needed. No more Mr. Nice guy Obama, we need to get this job done.
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I think it's a very bad timing.
Also, Obama should remember who placed him into the White House.
It's like biting the feeding hand……
President Obama is finally stepping up to the plate and doing the right thing. I remember very well the Paul Volcker of the early 1980s, and although his medicine was stringent stuff at the time, which caused much distress for many, it WAS the right prescription to get America's credit markets on track again for sustained economic health. I have little reason to think a “Volcker Rule” would bode ill for help toward an eventual return to economic health in the United States (thereby helping North America as well).