Wall Street-bloggen

Daniel Kederstedt

Daniel Kederstedt

De nya lagarna på Wall Street är knappast tillräckliga för att undanröja det hot som bjässarna utgör mot det finansiella systemet. Snarare hotar de kapitalismen, utgör ett hinder mot den ekonomiska tillväxten i landet och hämmar konkurrensen.

Det anser Thomas Hoenig, avgående chef för Federal Reserves enhet i Kansas, i ett av sina kanske hårdaste angrepp mot de regler som försöker fastställas efter krisen. 64-årige Thomas Hoenig vill mer eller mindre förpassa reformen Dodd-Frank – som ska se till att skattebetalarna slipper rycka ut vid nästa finanskris – till papperskorgen och istället återinföra Glass-Steagall. Lagen, vars syfte var att skilja affärs- och investmentbankverksamheterna från varandra, klubbades efter Den Stora Depressionen men avskaffades 1999. Lagen ställde blanda annat betydligt hårdare krav när det gällde redovisning, myndighetsövervakning och kapitaltäckning på affärsbanker som hanterar vanliga småsparares pengar än på investmentbankerna.

Så här lät det när Thomas Hoenig, som lämnar Fed en 1 oktober efter cirka 20 år i dess tjänst, nyligen talade i Washington:

”The US economy is the most successful in the history of the world. It achieved this success because it is based on the rules of capitalism, in which private ownership dominates markets and individuals reap the rewards of their success. However, for capitalism to work, businesses, including financial firms, must be allowed, or compelled, to compete freely and openly and must be held accountable for their failures.”

”…following a series of crises during the late 1980s and 1990s, the government confirmed that because of systemic impact, some institutions were just too big to fail — the largest institutions could put money in nearly any asset regardless of risk, and their creditors would not be held accountable for the risk taken.”

”We have a far more concentrated and less competitive banking system. There are fewer banks operating across the country, and the five largest institutions control more than half of the industry’s assets, equal to almost 60% of GDP.”

”The financial system has become far less competitive and far more volatile with the onset of systemically important institutions. Though large firms remain a critical part of our economic system in the United States, they should not become so dominant that they become unaccountable to our capitalistic system.”

”The Dodd-Frank reforms have all been introduced before, but financial markets skirted them. Supervisory authority existed, but it was used lightly because of political pressure and the misperceptions that free markets, with generous public support, could self-regulate.”

Foto: Mark Lennihan/AP

 

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