Monday, December 27, 2010

We need a Populist revolt against TBTF

    13 Bankers by Simon Johnson and James Kwak makes a good case for a Teddy Roosevelt Style break up of Mega-Banks, principally those that are Too Big To Fail.  Ron Paul may be the Andrew Jackson of our time who comes out of the wilderness and smites Wall Street and the Federal Reserve they co opted.
    Johnson and Kwak are confident that TBTF is such a strong idea against our present course of centralizing our financial structure that a key figure may coalesce a counter to Wall Street's influence much like Teddy Roosevelt did a hundred years ago. For example at the start of the 1900's it was the common opinion that Oil and Steel trusts were the inevitable natural order of economic activity and yet within a few short years TR was able to reverse that opinion and break up the trusts and apparently for the good of the country.
    The Obama administration is populated by Wall Street people in all things to do with Treasury and you can depend on Bonehead and Mitch to push the Wall Street agenda even more vigorously to out curry their favor in the next election.  Ron Paul with his steady drip drip criticism of the Fed may get traction on the issue as it becomes common knowledge that regulation and regulators get co opted by the industry they regulate.  The best refresher is failure. Allowing banks to be too big to fail is bad for our democracy as well as our economic well being. Presently it may be a Populist sentiment but is has a strong foundation.

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