Word on the street is our country’s financial powerhouses had a full year to decide how they wanted to self-police, post collapse. Needless to say, the administration felt they didn’t come anywhere close to passing the test. They should have been a little less brazen considering everyone knew Paul Volcker has the President’s ear, but it seems the arrogance and whining continued.
Here’s a passage from Newsweek’s article on the subject:
- Why did Obama decide to pursue this break-up-the-bank plan? According to the senior administration officials, he grew increasingly outraged by Wall Street’s brazenness in going back to business as usual in the year since the crisis. “As we have come out of the crisis and seen major financial institutions make significant profits on their proprietary trading and using the [federal] safety net to do that,” said one official, “it persuaded the president it was worth looking into this.”
The rest of their writeup can be found here: The End of Wall Street as We Know It – The Gaggle Blog – Newsweek.com.