The four ‘new sheriffs’ of Wall Street

[flashl]

The Federal Reserve and Treasury are playing a dominant day-to-day role in overseeing Wall Street following this week’s rescue of Bear Stearns, raising the prospect that the central bank might be given more permanent authority over securities firms.

Bankers say the greater authority is a direct consequence of the Fed’s extraordinary decisions to extend a $30bn credit line to help JPMorgan Chase’s takeover of Bear and to lend emergency funds to securities houses for the first time in more than 70 years.

“There is a new sheriff in town,” said a senior banker. “The Bear situation changed everything: people saw death before their eyes. The Fed and Treasury are in charge now and are not going to let go”.

...

Their stance has triggered talk of new financial services legislation, with bankers and politicians, including Barney Frank, House financial services committee chairman, asking whether investment banks should be regulated by the SEC or the Fed.

FT

[Vincardog]

1. Right that is what we need the unelected unanswerable thieves at the FED in charge of everything

[truedelphi]

7. But sadly as the American public doesn't know much abt the

real situation behind the creation of the Federal Reserve, the Fed probably will be allowed to be in control

My daughter in law is in banking, and often is flown to Washington to give speeches to the Feds. And I think she beleives that it is a national bank looking out for the interests of the American people.

My son has a degree in economics, and he too feels it is a benign institution helping our monetary situation.

[Vincardog]

8. WE know it is a corrupt institution devoted to the preservation of the riches' wealth at all expense

That is why they vote to curtail growth before that "Wage Inflation" kicks in.

[2Design]

2. they took down the sheriff - spitzer - they really don't want to correct this

but want to give the impression they care and all the people will believe them - aaaarrrgggh

[Trajan]

3. Dontcha just hate it when Government intrudes in the world economy ....

to save fat cats while they leave the 'little folk' hangin in the breeze ?

Fucking hypocrites ....

[mac2]

6. What is Governor Paterson going to do about it but make

fun of Spitzer's scandal. He himself had an affair. Now that we have that out of the way...let's be a "centrist"?

[NC_Nurse]

4. Should say the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse instead.

Wall Street's looking pretty doomed these days - at least for quite a long time.

[Warpy]

5. Yeah, all it took was seeing something that massive

go bust and that finally got through to those bastards why things had been regulated in the first place.

If you're young enough to have kids, make sure you teach them the truth, that when business, especially finance, talks about streamlining or doing away with regulations they find onerous, it means "Let in the thieves!"

Don't let them be the suckers my parents' generation was. Too young to have really seen the leadup to the Depression, they didn't recognize the same scam when it came along in the 80s and voted wholeheartedly for it.