Comments of the Week

July 27, 2012 10:06 AM

On former Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill's 180-degreee turn on Glass-Steagall:

"Were the consequences of his actions not so devastating for hundreds of millions of people and businesses around the world, we might be amused by the irony. Instead, Mr. Weill's comments make me wonder why 'tar & feathering' ever went out of fashion."

(Image: Bloomberg News)

On Sandy Weill's call to resurrect Glass-Steagall:

"Humpty Dumpty" cannot be put back together again, despite the valiant efforts of Paul Volcker."

(Image: Thinkstock)

On breaking up large banks:

"Community bankers were opposed to the repeal [of Glass Steagall] then and would welcome the provisions of the old legislation restored as soon as possible ... period! Give us one good reason that we should we trust the boards of the megabanks to act on their own?"

(Image: Thinkstock)

On breaking up large banks:

"Breaking up giants to logical regional banks creates the opportunity for more individual winners in the stock market, but more importantly an exit strategy as the losers who perform poorly are acquired by the better performers."

(Image: Thinkstock)

On Fed Gov. Sarah Bloom Raskin's call for a tougher Volcker rule:

"JPM Chase already proved that banks can circumvent the rule -- by disguising high-risk proprietary trading of government-insured deposits in synthetic credit derivatives as benign, risk management hedging."

(Image: Bloomberg News)

On how regulation slows innovation in the banking industry:

"A good example is social media. How much bureaucracy does it take for someone in a bank to post on Facebook? Twitter? Quite a bit in fact. You have manager review, compliance review, legal review, etc. before you even get to post a comment (if you are even allowed to) … It's hard to be innovative when you are a utility. Maybe one day that will change and the industry can actually move forward."

(Image: Thinkstock)

On why it takes so many bankers to send one tweet:

"Can you imagine the PR problem for a bank if what was tweeted or put on Facebook wasn't properly vetted?"

(Image: Thinkstock)

On why it shouldn't take so many bankers to send one tweet:

"Banks, especially now that their reputations have taken a sound shellacking, cannot afford to bunker down on new communication channels any more than they can afford to let nonbanks hijack mobile payments."

On managing risk:

"Bankers are like baseball hitters and they all need to be in the batting cage daily learning the strike zone for risk management … Modeling is great yet fundamental balls and strikes have not changed for decades. Let's return to the basics."

(Image: Thinkstock)

On whether the Libor scandal undermines bankers' claims of overregulation:

"Overregulation does not mean that they have been properly regulated. Just because the efforts are enormous, time consuming, costly to all, does not mean that they are efficient or effective."

(Image: Thinkstock)

On the use of eminent domain to acquire bad home loans:

"The San Bernardino plan will only target those loans that are being paid on time, as that is the only way to entice the investors to refinance them. If you target those who are actually behind in their payments (and arguably most in need) there will be no investment capital available to fund that refinance. Nice try, but that's not how the world works."

(Image: Thinkstock)

On the Basel III capital rules:

"They may hit the regionals hard, but they will wipeout the community banking sector as we know it. The new Basel III proposed rules should only be applied to the largest, internationally active SIFI's."

(Image: Thinkstock)

On whether a rules-based, model-driven regulatory system is in order:

"We need a strong, slightly boring, banking system to make sound loans to individuals and smaller businesses and lead the nation into economic recovery."

(Image: Thinkstock)

On the shortcomings of the stress tests:

"The problem with the CCAR process is that it is provides a false sense of confidence that because we are doing something that 'feels' analytic - like a value-at-risk model - we are actually identifying the drivers of loss over time."

(Image: Thinkstock)

On the CFPB's first enforcement action:

"Time will tell whether this Agency is after business reform and profit since that is capitalism. Or, is it after other goals."

(Image: Bloomberg News)

On debit card swipe fee reform:

"All we merchants are asking is that banks compete for our business, as we do for our customers' every single day."

(Image: Thinkstock)

On former Citi M&A Chief Kamal Mustafa's assertion that 2,000 banks should sell now:

"The number of banks that should disappear may exceed 2,000 and be closer to 5,000."

(Image: Thinkstock)

On how to make big banks behave:

"Let's take away the ability for the banks to trade synthetics disguised as hedges in an improper consumer setting."

(Image: Thinkstock)