Comments of the Week
June 1, 2012 12:02 PM
(Image: ThinkStock)
On Barney Frank's support for a ban on insurance against having pay clawed back:
"I haven't much agreed with Barney Frank over the years, but on this he seems to be making sense. He has my vote!"(Image: Bloomberg News)
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On allegations that big banks have manipulated small banks for political ends:
"The mega financial firms on Wall Street all belong to at least six different national financial trade groups, and through those trade groups they convince some community bankers that everyone must lift together on every issue - and that is why community banks stagger under nearly all the same regulations that apply to the mega trillion dollar banks."(Image: ThinkStock)
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On capital requirements:
"Banks are drowning in obese exposures to what was ex-ante perceived as absolutely not risky, and therefore already liked by bankers, and anorexic exposures to what ex-ante perceived as risky, and therefore already disliked by bankers. The regulators have no excuse for their dumb behavior and should have to walk down 5th Avenue wearing cones of shame."(Image: ThinkStock)
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On a bill drafted to help Emigrant Bank by politicians to whom it made campaign contributions:
"At some point, instead of the Rolling Thunder rumbling through the streets of DC, as occurred [on Memorial Day], there will be the sound of 100,000 Ford F-150s from the Republic of Texas, and other sympathetic southern states. We cannot have lasting and appropriate financial reform without that other missing link: campaign finance reform. Vote these guys out, or rally the F-150s."(Image: ThinkStock)
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On Congressional approval for the Emigrant Bank bill:
"This story appears to add credence to the observation that America has some of the best politicians money can buy."(Image: ThinkStock)
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On defending Jamie Dimon:
"There seems to be no end to this absurd public pile on and flogging of Jamie Dimon. Selective memory is a curious human coping skill but destructive and misleading in the public domain. Anyone who has ever worked under Mr. Dimon's leadership knows that he possesses a very deep and very detailed understanding the numerous forms of risk that a financial institution must manage."(Image: Bloomberg News)
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On Mitt Romney's observation that JPMorgan's trading loss was someone else's gain:
"Romney did not claim that the counterparties were banks or should be banks, he merely pointed out that there were counterparties and that the counterparties probably made money."(Image: Bloomberg News)
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On the JPMorgan trading loss:
"The Volcker rule is not a panacea and that the lack of a coherent regulatory approach is an on-going systemic risk to our economy. The social contract of banks used to be common-sense regulation in exchange for government backing on deposits. Now banks have government backing not just of deposits but of debt and other liabilities and still no sensible, competent regulation. Maybe the bailout came too early and the crisis was wasted and another one will be required."
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On the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act:
"Opponents of the SBREFA panels seem to forget that adding that requirement was an important part of getting enough votes to pass Dodd-Frank out of the Senate."
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On Fannie's plan to break up the force-placed insurance market:
"No need to boil the ocean. The GSEs should simply cap the amount that they will reimburse servicers for lender placed/forced placed insurance. The rest will take care of itself."(Image: Bloomberg News)
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