Salon on the "Volcker Rule"..."If President Obama wants a battle with Wall Street, he's got one"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Thursday, Jan 21, 2010 12:30 EST
How The World Works
Obama on the banks: "I'm ready to fight"
Wall Street won't like the president's new "Volcker Rule." So if he really wants a battle, he's got one
By Andrew Leonard

Obama just can't get a break. Moments before the president was scheduled to announce a major policy shift on banking regulation, the Supreme Court handed down its ruling weakening campaign finance laws. The upshot: Corporations and unions and other entities will now, once again, be allowed to spend freely on political advertising. Can you hear the sound of media coverage shifting its attention, en masse?

But the two news events are intimately connected. If the president follows through on his promises to limit the size of financial institutions and to prevent banks from using federally insured deposits to make bets on securities, the banks will fight him with everything they've got. That much we already knew. But now the Supreme Court has handed Wall Street a huge club with which to thwack Obama or any other politician who dares to try to restrain the likes of JPMorgan and Goldman-Sachs. And you can bet they won't be shy to use it.

Talk about your American tragedies. The banks have loads of money, largely because of a taxpayer bailout. Now they're going to start spending that money with a freedom they haven't enjoyed in 20 years, in order to prevent the government from making sure they don't run wild and wreck the economy again.

So what's at stake? In a short address to the nation Thursday morning, Obama previewed two major new additions to the reform package the administration has previously set forth.

http://www.salon.com/news/wall_street/index.html?story=/tech/htww/2010/01/21/obama_talks_tough_on_banks

[Pab Sungenis]

1. Break the banks up.

Make it illegal again for banks to operate across state lines. Break BoA into 50 separate companies, the big W bank I'm not allowed to name by court order into 47 separate companies. Break TD into 13, and so on. Then each of those banks will have to concentrate on local concerns.

[KittyWampus]

11. there you go. There is precedent for it.

[TxRider]

14. The people would back him up

Tea baggers, independents, most or all of them I think.

Too big to fail = monopoly. Break em up.

At this point I'll believe it when I see it though.

[snagglepuss]

2. "...banks have loads of money, largely because of a taxpayer bailout"

That says it all doesn't it?

[FrenchieCat]

3. But he's a wimp, I heard!

[asdjrocky]

4. What a joke.

Like he's really going to take on the banksters. These guys are his BFFs.

[FrenchieCat]

6. It doesn't really matter what he does for folks like you......

he's wrong when he's wrong; he's wrong and he's right.

How do you like your Supreme Court. Can you tell the difference
between the Dems and the GOP on the court yet? Probably not.

what a joke.

[asdjrocky]

7. "Folks like me".

Funny. Do you mean folks that like the truth? Folks that are liberals?

[FrenchieCat]

8. No, folks like you who can't recognize

how the real world works.....only how they would like it to.

[asdjrocky]

10. That's funny, coming from someone who's credibility has come into question here more than once.

Good luck with that whole real world meme.

[Bullet1987]

5. If Obama goes after the Banks which is what most people want him to do

he can't do it with kiddie gloves. Not saying the Volker Rule is that, but he has to be prepared to follow through with it or he's going to be run over. This is when that Progressive majority he built during his campaign could come in handy, but he's spent a year working with these people and now a lot of folks have become disillusioned to him.

[Gin]

9. words...words...words.....I will believe it when he actually enacts some new

rules for these banksters....right now, its rhetoric..nothing more.

[Hippo_Tron]

12. The SCOTUS just made it legal to do what is basically already done under the table

Corporations already spend this money via 527 groups. All they've done is make it legal for these groups to now coordinate their efforts with a candidate. But quite frankly this coordination already went on beforehand. For example, we all know that the Swift Boat Liars were run by friends of Karl Rove.

[TheKentuckian]

13. Taking even bad brakes off a car isn't going in the right direction

Its not good at all.

[Hippo_Tron]

15. I agree completely

But as far as I can tell this ruling isn't a that big of a game changer. I could be wrong about that, though.