Comptroller of the Currency Eugene A. Ludwig last week got a lesson in Senate decorum.
During a Senate Banking subcommittee hearing Thursday, Mr. Ludwig prefaced several answers with the word, "Look," which did not sit well with Sen. Alfonse M. D'Amato.
"Look, let me answer your question," Mr. Ludwig said as the lawmaker peppered him with queries. Sen. D'Amato, apparently detecting a tone of impertinence, launched a verbal assualt.
"Don't tell me 'Look.' Don't tell me 'Look.' I don't tell you 'Look,' you don't tell me 'Look,' " Sen. D'Amato bellowed.
"Let me answer your question fully-Look ... ," Mr. Ludwig replied, before laughter from onlookers drowned him out.
Sen. D'Amato, however, was not amused. "You will be back here again; we'll have a full committee hearing," Mr. D'Amato warned.
To many in the industry, the struggle to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act may seem like never-ending torture. But Rep. Edward Markey takes the existential view.
In a hearing last week, the Massachusetts Democrat compared efforts to modernize the financial system to the condemnation of Sisyphus, a Greek mythological figure forced by the gods to push a boulder up a mountain. Each time Sisyphus neared the peak, the stone rolled to the bottom and he would start again.
Quoting philosopher Albert Camus, who considered Sisyphus a hero, Rep. Markey said, "The struggle to reach the top is itself enough to fulfill the heart of man."
Rep. Markey predicted that financial reform will ultimately be a futile exercise. So, "we should all just take pleasure in the existential struggle to reach the top."
After hearing the Massachusetts lawmaker's philosophy lesson, Rep. Michael Oxley, R-Ohio, asked: "Are the Red Sox the Sisyphus of this century?"
The Senate's top Democrat has vowed "to do everything I can" to forbid mergers between banks an non-financial firms.
In an letter mailed last week to bankers in his home state, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle said plans to mix banking and commerce " would further concentrate economic power in big banking centers like New York and Chicago, making it harder for South Dakotans to get loans," he said.
Rep. Doug Bereuter is hunting for House colleagues to oppose the common ownership of banks and commercial firms.
In a May 1 letter to House lawmakers, the Nebraska Republican asked colleagues to sign a letter urging Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin not to propose mixing commerce and banking as part of the administration's long- delayed financial modernization plan.
