PayThink

Odds and ends from the Reporter's Notebook Remnants Bin.

A follow up to the April 9, 2012 article, "Post-Merger Issues Surface in Florida" about Space Coast Credit Union.

Shareholders, creditors, counterparties and regulators deserve to know more about the causes of that $2 billion trading loss.

Until now, there was no expectation that anyone at Tuesday's shareholder meeting would complain about the enormous booty Jamie Dimon earns. The $2 billion trading loss changes everything.

As a former banker, I watched in amazement and disgust as the country's largest banks morphed from trusted fiduciaries of customer financial assets to unrepentant predators of consumer financial assets in just a few decades.

I guess I'm tired of reading and hearing banks and their managements cursed, ridiculed and extolled for causing the financial meltdown and economic crisis. It seems that most everyone from Washington to the "Occupy" groups wants a piece of banking's hide for the pain of this recent experience.

I've never been able to square bankers' constant demands for less regulation with their repeated requests for more government backing on loans, deposits and insurance.

The best way to stave off regulatory excess in the wake of a financial crisis is to stop causing crises in the first place. More restraint on financial institutions' part could help.

To ensure covenants are satisfied, loan syndicates obtain private information that would give an equity market maker an advantage. Reinstating Glass-Steagall may be the only way to prevent reuse of such information.

In their path-breaking 2009 book "This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly" economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff conclude it never is.