Not is terms of the economy -- which remains bogged down with high employment, low growth and other aftershocks -- but rather when it comes to demanding a rigorous effort to hold Wall Street bankers, traders and executives accountable for their role in causing the financial crisis.
Should we just chalk it up to such simplified explanations as "animal spirits ran amok" and "these things happen occasionally"? Or should we continue to expend scarce political and law-enforcement resources trying to get to the bottom of what happened, and why, with a goal of holding the right people legally and financially accountable?
It’s a conundrum, especially since many Americans have lost enthusiasm for the fight. But the path we ultimately take will reveal to us and the world much about who we are as a people and what ethics, values and morality we stand for. It will also have serious lasting implications if we hope to avoid a rerun of what happened over the last five years. At the moment, the message we are broadcasting far and wide is: There will be no justice; there will be no accountability; let’s return to the status quo as quickly as possible.
Moving On
There are, not surprisingly, powerful and articulate voices in favor of moving on. In his book "Unintended Consequences," Edward Conard, a former Bain Capital partner of Mitt Romney (who is willing to say the things Romney wouldn’t dare and has given $1 million to a political action committee that supports the Romney campaign), argues forcefully that occasional market collapses such as 1929 and 2008 are a small price to pay for a system of capital allocation that has produced vast sums of wealth, extraordinary technical and financial innovation, and an incentive system that rewards people handsomely for taking risks
For better or for worse, Conard writes, this is the country that produced Apple Inc. (AAPL), Google Inc. (GOOG) and Facebook Inc. (FB), among the most admired corporations in the world. Conard believes the sooner we get back to untethering Wall Street’s animal instincts the better. That means modest regulation, at best, and an end to any efforts at meting out justice for those personally responsible for the financial crisis because, hey, stuff happens.
Volcker Rule
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that while the rest of us have moved on when it comes to the nitty-gritty details of what, say, the Volcker Rule will end up looking like when it is finally written, lawyers and lobbyists for Wall Street firms are working the regulators over with renewed intensity. JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs have spent, respectively, $12.7 million and $8.3 million since the passage of the Dodd-Frank law in July 2010 on lobbying the regulators who are still drafting the final regulations. Goldman asked last week for an exemption for certain investments from a Volcker rule proposal that would limit a bank’s total investment in hedge and private-equity funds to 3 percent of Tier I capital. Why? Goldman makes a boatload of money investing this way.
On the other side of the debate are people like Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate from Massachusetts, who still believes that accountability for the bad behavior that occurred years ago on Wall Street is essential. "People feel like the system is rigged against them," she said at the Democratic National Convention in September. "And here’s the painful part: they’re right. The system is rigged. Look around. Oil companies guzzle down billions in subsidies. Billionaires pay lower tax rates than their secretaries. Wall Street CEOs -- the same ones who wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs -- still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them. Anyone here have a problem with that? Well I do." I’m no fan of Elizabeth Warren -- I fear that her populism and condescending tone will make her an ineffective Senator (should she win) -- but I agree with her completely that we cannot give up the fight to hold people responsible for what happened on Wall Street in the years leading up to the financial crisis. U.S. Banking News October 22, 2012
Sheila McKinney
