March 26, 2010
Thomas Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, spoke out in favor of financial reform on Wednesday in a speech before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The shocking aspect of Hoenig’s speech is that it comes from the mouth of a member of the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee (FOMC) which sets economic policy. Beyond that, Hoenig brutally criticized what has been done so far to tilt the playing field in favor of the megabanks, at the expense of smaller banks. Here are some choice bits from what should be mandatory reading for everyone in Congress:
As a nation, we have violated the central tenants of any successful system. We have seen the formation of a powerful group of financial firms. We have inadvertently granted them implied guarantees and favors, and we have suffered the consequences. We must correct these violations. We must reinvigorate fair competition within our system in a culture of business ethics that operates under the rule of law. When we do this, we will not eliminate the small businesses’ need for capital, but we will make access to capital once again earned, as it should be.
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The fact is that Main Street will not prosper without a healthy financial system. We will not have a healthy financial system now or in the future without making fundamental changes that reverse the wrong-headed incentives, change behavior and reinforce the structure of our financial system. These changes must be made so that the largest firms no longer have the incentive to take too much risk and gain a competitive funding advantage over smaller ones. Credit must be allocated efficiently and equitably based on prospective economic value. Without these changes, this crisis will be remembered only in textbooks and then we will go through it all again.
Hoenig’s speech comes at a time when the Senate is considering a watered-down version of financial reform that has been widely criticized. Economist Simon Johnson pointed out how any approach based on U.S. authority alone to “resolve” or break up systemically dangerous banks would be doomed because “there is no cross-border agreement on resolution process and procedure — and no prospect of the same in sight”.
Blogger Mike Konczal expressed his disappointment with what has become of the Financial Reform Bill as it has been dragged through the legislative process:
It’s funny, I know what a good financial reform bill becoming a bad financial reform bill looks like through this process. I’ve seen bribes and more bribes and last-minute giveaway changes.
The notion that bribery has been an obstacle to financial reform became a central theme of Karl Denninger’s enthusiastic reaction to Hoenig’s speech:
All in all it’s nice to see Thomas Hoenig wake up. Now let’s see if we can get CONgress to stop opening the bribe envelopes, er, ignore the campaign contributions for a sufficient period of time to actually fix this mess, forcing those “big banks” to get that leverage ratio down to where it belongs, along with marking their assets to the market.
Thomas Hoenig provided exactly the type of leadership needed and at exactly the right time to give a boost to serious financial reform. We can only hope that there will be enough responsible, ethical people in the Senate to incorporate Hoenig’s suggestions into the Financial Reform Bill. If only . . .
Building A Consensus For Survival
March 29, 2010
In my last posting, I focused on the fantastic discourse in favor of financial reform presented by Thomas Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, in a speech before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In addition to Hoenig’s speech, last week brought us a number of excellent arguments for the cause that is so bitterly opposed by Wall Street lobbyists. On the same day that Thomas Hoenig delivered his great speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin also addressed that institution to argue in favor of financial reform. I enjoyed the fact that he rubbed this in their faces:
Wolin’s presentation was yet another signal from the Treasury Department that inspired economist Simon Johnson to begin feeling optimistic about the possibility that some meaningful degree of financial reform might actually take place:
Yep. That was our old pal and former New York Fed President, “Turbo” Tim Geithner, making the case for financial reform before the American Enterprise Institute. (You remember them — the outfit that fired David Frum for speaking out against Fox News and the rest of the “conservative entertainment industry”.) Treasury Secretary Geithner made his pitch for reform by reminding his conservative audience that longstanding advocates of the “efficient market hypothesis” had come on board in favor of financial reform:
No wonder Simon Johnson is feeling so upbeat! The administration is actually making a serious attempt at doing what needs to be done to get this accomplished.
Meanwhile, The New York Times had run a superb article by David Leonhardt just as Geithner was about to address the AEI. Leonhardt’s essay, “Heading Off the Next Financial Crisis” is a thorough analysis, providing historical background and covering every angle on what needs to be done to clean up the mess that got us where we are today — and to prevent it from happening again. Here are some snippets from the first page that had me hooked right away:
Congratulations to David Leonhardt for putting that great piece together. As more commentators continue to advance such astute, sensible appeals to plug the leaks in our sinking financial system, there is a greater likelihood that our lawmakers will realize that the economic risk of doing nothing far exceeds the amounts of money in those envelopes from the lobbyists.