Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.

Via Felix Salmon, I see that Tim Geithner has unveiled his plan — or, more accurately, his guiding principles — for regulating leverage more effectively in the financial industry.  And it’s not bad.  Basically it requires (a) stronger capital requirements across the board; (b) higher capital requirements for bigger firms, which would make larger firms somewhat less profitable; (c) an emphasis on real capital, not shell games; (d) higher capital requirements in good times and lower requirements in bad times; (e) a simple leverage constraint as sort of a backup to the more complex main capital rules; (f) stronger regulation of off-balance-sheet vehicles; (g) some kind of minimum liquidity requirement so that banks can’t be wiped out in just a matter of days by a bank run; and (h) extension of all these rules to big non-banking entities (the “shadow banking” system).

All of these are described in general terms, and I note that (h) is described in especially dodgy terms.  So we won’t know how serious Geithner is about this stuff until he rolls out the details.  But at least he seems to singing the right songs.

PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

payment methods

PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate