Juggling Dynamite

Senator Elizabeth Warren’s Q&A at the Senate Banking Committee’s hearing to consider the nomination of Janet Yellen to be Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.Here is a direct video link.

Warren points out that if the Fed had done its job of regulating and overseeing banking risk properly in the first place we would never have needed all their extraordinary bailout efforts since. While Yellen concedes this is true she says they have learned from their failures.

The trouble is there is no evidence to support Yellen’s assurances. Yesterday she testified yet again that she sees no evidence of any excess speculation or bubbles building in the financial system today. The Yellen Fed will therefore be just as useless as the Greenspan and Bernanke-led Feds were in mitigating any risks for the real world.

Everyone should hear and understand this important presentation.

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) outlined an updated version of the Glass Steagall Act, which would be designed to control risk at the nation’s largest banks. She called on Congress to better regulate the “too big to fail” banks. She compared the struggle to regulate large financial institutions as a David versus Goliath struggle, saying, “David beat Goliath with the passage of Dodd-Frank….I am confident David can beat Goliath on ‘too big to fail.’ We just have to pick up the slingshot again.”

This keynote address was part of a Roosevelt Institute- Americans for Financial Reform event for the release of their joint report on issues remaining in the financial industry after the implementation of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial regulations law and the formation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.Here is a direct video link.

Danielle was a guest with Jim Goddard of Talk Digital Network talking about recent developments in the world economy and markets. Here is a direct audio link.