Chuck Prince – The Baseline Scenario

By Simon Johnson

“Breaking up big banks would actually increase system risk” is a refrain heard from top administration officials, ever more vocal after they helped kill the Brown-Kaufman amendment (that would have limited the size and leverage of our largest banks) on the floor of the Senate.

But while Mr. Geithner and his colleagues are still taking their victory laps and congratulating themselves on retaining “business as usual” after the biggest crash-and-bailout in world financial history, educated opinion starts to feel increasingly uncomfortable.

People who worry seriously about system risk break the problem down into several distinct buckets, including the nature of shocks and the way these are propagated across the system. In this typology, the “Chuck Prince problem” is in a class of its own. Continue reading ““Chuck Prince” Is Going To Run This Bank (Into The Ground)” →

This week the administration begins a serious behind-the-scenes charm offensive on its regulatory reform plans. The argument seems to be: we are where we are on banks’ solvency/recapitalization, so let’s not argue about that; it’s time to strengthen financial regulation in line with our G20 commitments.

But there is a serious dilemma lurking behind the foreshadowing, the rhetoric, and the talking points. (Aside to Treasury: please find somone other than big financial players to endorse your next 100 days report; many taxpayers will find p.5 of your first report particularly annoying – if you don’t understand this point, you are too close to the big banks.)

Here’s the problem.

Continue reading “Remember Chuck Prince!” →