FINANCIAL REFORMS….Bob Kuttner proposes three fundamental reforms for our broken financial system:
Reform One: If it Quacks Like a Bank, Regulate it Like a Bank. Barack Obama said it well in his historic speech on the financial emergency last March 27 in New York. “We need to regulate financial institutions for what they do, not what they are.” Increasingly, different kinds of financial firms do the same kinds of things, and they are all capable of infusing toxic products into the nation’s financial bloodstream….
Reform Two: Limit Leverage. At the very heart of the financial meltdown was extreme speculation with esoteric financial securities, using astronomical rates of leverage. Commercial banks are limited to something like 10 to one, or less, depending on their conditions. These leverage limits need to be extended to all financial players, as part of the same 2009 banking reform.
Reform Three: Police Conflicts of Interest. The conflicts of interest at the core of bond-raising agencies are only one of the conflicts that have been permitted to pervade financial markets. Bond-rating agencies should probably become public institutions. Other conflicts of interest should be made explicitly illegal.
These are guidelines, not specific reforms, but they’re the right guidelines. Kuttner calls this a “Roosevelt-scale counterrevolution,” and I’d only add that we also need a Roosevelt-scale reform of our basic economic priorities. An economy that relentlessly favors a tiny class of the super-rich is fundamentally unstable. Conversely, one that relentlessly favors job and wage growth is not only stable, but benefits everyone, including the rich. If we continue to have an unbalanced economy, all the financial system reforms in the world won’t keep meltdowns like this from happening over and over again. It really is time for a change.
