By Simon Johnson
Senators Merkley and Levin, with support from colleagues, are proposing legislation that would apply Paul Volcker’s financial reform principles – actually, much more effectively than would the Treasury’s specific proposals. (Link to the bill’s text.)
Volcker’s original idea, as you may recall, is that financial institutions with government guarantees (implicit or explicit) should not be allowed to engage in reckless risk-taking. At least in part, that risk-taking takes the form of big banks committing their own capital in various kinds of gambles – whether or not they call this proprietary trading.
At the Senate Banking Committee hearing on this issue in early February, John Reed – former head of Citi – was adamant that a restriction on proprietary trading not only made sense, but was also long overdue. Gerald Corrigan of Goldman Sachs and Barry Zubrow of JP Morgan Chase expressed strong opposition, which suggests that Paul Volcker is onto something.
Of course, Goldman – among others – may seek to turn in its (recently acquired) banking license and go back to being “just an investment bank”, not subject to Fed regulation. But raising this possibility is a feature, not a bug of the Volcker-Merkley-Levin approach. Continue reading “The Volcker Principles Move Closer To Practice”