KC Fed President Thomas Hoenig Calls For Break-Up Of Mega-Banks, Attacks Wall Street (Audio & Transcript)
Audio: Huffington Post interview with Thomas M. Hoenig, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, conducted April 2 by Shahien Nasiripour.
Transcript and links are inside.
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Exclusive interview from the Huffington Post
By Shahien Nasiripour:
The U.S. should bust up its megabanks and impose strict laws curbing the size and complexity of financial institutions, a top Federal Reserve official told the Huffington Post.
In a 45-minute interview this week, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Thomas M. Hoenig, who's emerged as one of the few influential voices calling for a fundamental redesign of a broken U.S. financial system:
- Lambasted the tilted playing field that benefits Wall Street banks over Main Street banks;
- Called the idea that the U.S. needs megabanks to compete globally a "fantasy";
- Said Congress should mandate simple, easily understood and enforceable rules -- rather than guidelines -- so regulators can restrain financial firms and rein in the financial system;
- Prodded the Senate to get tougher on permanently ending Too Big To Fail by enacting laws that would take away much of the discretion currently held by policymakers (who bailed out financial firms when confronted with these decisions in late 2008);
- And criticized the Federal Reserve's ongoing policy to keep the main interest rate near zero because it "guarantee[s] a spread to Wall Street", enabling unearned profits and "encourag[ing] speculation."
Hoenig's criticisms echo those made by reformers pushing to remake a financial system that melted down in 2008 after years of excessive risk-taking and loose regulation finally took its toll, causing the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression and costing the nation more than 8 million jobs.
But Hoenig isn't just any reformer -- he's the longest-serving Fed policy maker; a voting member of the Fed's main policy-making body, the Federal Open Market Committee; and his credentials as a deficit- and inflation hawk are unparalleled.
In February, Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and contributing editor to the Huffington Post, wrote a post on his blog titled "Tom Hoenig for Treasury," putting him forward as one of just a few viable candidates to succeed current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner should he step down.
And unlike top officials in the Obama administration, Congress and his colleagues at the Federal Reserve, Hoenig is calling for perhaps the most significant changes in the U.S. financial system: breaking up the big banks and imploring Congress to establish tough rules so that bank regulators will never again be put in a position to bail out troubled firms.
Breaking Up Megabanks
For example, one of the effects of Too Big To Fail, Hoenig said, "has been that the concentration of financial resources in this country has nearly doubled over the last 15 to 20 years. That's what we have to end."
The banks owned by the four largest financial firms in the U.S. -- Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo -- collectively account for about 43 percent of all assets in the U.S. banking system, according to a HuffPost analysis of Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation data.
The top 12 banks in the U.S. control half the country's deposits. By comparison, it took 25 banks to accomplish this feat in 2003 and 42 banks in 1998, according to a Jan. 4 research note by Jason M. Goldberg of Barclays Capital.
Those four megabanks collectively hold about $7.4 trillion in assets, according to the most recent regulatory filings with the Federal Reserve. That's equal to about 52 percent of the nation's estimated total output last year.
"The fact that they needed to be supported by TARP tells me that they're too big," Hoenig said. "I think that that's a very clear signal that they're too big. The fact that they had to be bailed out under those circumstances suggests they are too big, and that needs to end."
In response, he says policymakers should simply break up the megabanks and split them off into their component parts.
"I think they should be broken up," Hoenig said. "I think there's no reason why as we've done in other instances of [sic] finding the right mechanism to break them into their components.
"Underwriting [securities], hedge fund activities, trading for their own accounts -- that should be in a separate institution," Hoenig said, referencing the proposals that have become popularly known as the Volcker Rules, named after their original proponent, former Fed chairman Paul Volcker. "And in doing so, I think you'll make the financial system itself more stable. I think you will make it more competitive, and I think you will have long-run benefits over our current system, [which] mixes it and therefore leads to bailouts when crises occur."
By first breaking up the firms, the market will then decide what's an appropriate maximum size, Hoenig said.
"...We've provided this support and allowed Too Big To Fail and that subsidy, so that they've become larger than I think they otherwise would," Hoenig said. "I think by breaking them up, the market itself would begin to help tell you what the right size was over time."
In a March 24 speech in Washington, Hoenig said that the TBTF subsidy "provides a direct cost advantage to these firms."
"Without the fear of loss to creditors, these large firms can use higher leverage, which allows them to fund more assets with lower cost debt instead of more expensive equity," he said.
That allows them to get even bigger, leaving their smaller competitors behind who need to worry about raising equity before they can fund more loans.
"If the top 20 firms held the same equity capital levels as other smaller banking institutions, they would require $210 billion in new equity or reduced assets of over $3 trillion, or some combination of both," he said.
Bringing Back Glass-Steagall
The U.S. should revive parts of Glass-Steagall, the Depression-era law that long prohibited banks from underwriting securities and engaging in other Wall Street-like activities, to break up megabanks, Hoenig told HuffPost. The law was repealed during the Clinton administration. The Obama administration has shown no desire to bring it back.
"At the moment I would be inclined to break them up along those lines of activities, and then let the market define what the right size is, and it will be, I suspect, smaller, much smaller, given our recent experience," he said.
"When Glass-Steagall was set aside and Gramm-Leach-Bliley [the law that repealed it] was introduced, I gave a speech which raised the concern that we would encounter mega-institutions," Hoenig said. "People would say... 'They're not too big to fail', but when the crisis came they would be too big to fail, and that's what we've gotten.
'So I am partially in favor of re-establishing elements of Glass-Steagall that separates the very important commercial banking that is so critical to our economy and our payment system from what I call high-risk activities in investment banks and hedge funds.
"I have nothing, nothing at all against high-risk activities in hedge funds and so forth, but they should not be part of our commercial banking payment system."
On Whether The U.S. Needs Megabanks
Asked if he believes in a popular notion shared by top policymakers, legislators, and those on Wall Street -- that the U.S. needs megabanks to compete globally, Hoenig said:
"That is a fantasy -- I don't know how else to describe it. Our strengths will be from having a strong industrial economy. We will have financial institutions that are large enough to give us influence in the markets but not so large that they're too big to fail.
"The outcome of that is that strong banks [and] strong economies bring capital to themselves, and they are by themselves competitive.
"The United States became a financial center not because we had large institutions but because we had a strong industrial economy with a good working financial system across the United States -- not just highly-concentrated in one market area," he said in an apparent reference to Wall Street.
JPMorgan Chase Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon defended megabanks in his annual letter to shareholders this week, arguing for the economic benefits of outsized financial institutions.
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Click to read part 2 at the Huffington Post >>
Apr 2, 2010 at 2:23 PM
Reader Comments (51)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/02/top-fed-official-wants-to_n_521842.html
http://biggovernment.com/kschlichter/2010/03/25/hi-im-pete-kesterson-normal-people-step-up-to-take-on-incumbents/
http://biggovernment.com/oftheeising/2010/03/25/a-perfect-storm-deficit-soaringdebt-soaringnumber-who-pay-no-taxes-soaring/
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aVYxPZ56vjys
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/25/AR2010032502426.html
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9ER3HJ00&show_article=1
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/90347-bachmann-says-pelosi-wanted-to-incite-tea-partiers
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/90399-actor-kal-penn-leaving-white-house-job
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/90405-quayle-to-gop-be-wary-of-tea-party-revolt-
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/90403-mcconnell-full-health-repeal-probably-wont-happen-with-obama-in-office
No shit Sherlock.
The problem is that even my fucking pet IGUANA had ALREADY figured that one out about 2 years earlier than YOU. And IT'S been locked inside a cage for most of that time.
I'm fucking sick & tired of hearing these douchebags SAY what "needs to be done" vs DOING what needs to be done.
Sometimes I feel like flying a medium-sized balsa wood paper kite into the side of a federal building.
The OBVIOUS insincerity of the Mobamba administration's intentions becomes readily apparent when they subsequently simply REFUSE to follow the recommendations of the very same expert that they themselves called-in.
Sooner or later even the knuckle-draggers are going to figure-out that the Obankster is peeing on their legs all this time and telling them that it's raining ..and there'll be HELL TO PAY when they do!
Sometimes I feel like flying a medium-sized balsa wood paper kite into the side of a federal building.
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damn that's brilliant...
For NOW.
:-)
Where has this guy been, I guess he has not seen that politicians of both sides and business have been gutting out the industrial might of America for 50 years...
How about ending all unbalanced trade deals to give Americans a fair shake?
"Feds: Homes with Chinese drywall must be gutted"
Yet again another gift from our political and business friends across the big pond, I cannot believe that Americans are still so enamored with their poisoned crap.
You justifiably kicked-out Ken because he became a nuisance. Now to be FAIR, you should ALSO considering giving this Sarapustra character the old heave-ho TOO. He/she/it has the habit of attacking the posters INSTEAD of the topics at hand.
I vote to put out his torch and have him leave the island...
DB...Obama is a fraud and he is dangerous...WE NOW HAVE THE GANDHI DOCTRINE!!!!! GOD HELP US!!!!!!
The Reagan Doctrine...Maybe in 2012.
The Bush Doctrine...NOPE
The Kennedy Doctrine...You wish.
Any Cold War Doctrine...Not Even Close Bud
The Clinton Doctrine...Not for Barry.
The Fairness Doctrine...Yes & Soon but not a war doctrine.
Obama has adopted the GANDHI DOCTRINE...If you are hit on the right cheek, give them your left cheek. Just don't hit back.
For me every ruler is alien that defies public opinion.
Mohandas Gandhi
In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.
Mohandas Gandhi
Man lives freely only by his readiness to die, if need be, at the hands of his brother, never by killing him.
Mohandas Gandhi
We must become the change we want to see in the world.
Mohandas Gandhi
I was raised in the shadow of the mushroom cloud Frenchie, 6 miles from ground zero. I guess they poison/ contaminate/ FUBAR everything they touch to keep you happy Gobie. After all, everything they do is right, that is the predominate thought of Tories, and that is why they reward China so. They say ignorance is bliss... And you are definately the most blissful person I know.
I won't get into the 20 years of personal sacrifice because I believed in America, it would take to long, and you are not worth it.
"Tell us what is going to happen next"
You already know what happens next, you just refuse to accept the truth and continue to believe in false Gods.
"Tell us who to believe in if not America, God and our guns."
I believe in Americans, God, and the second amendment, as a matter of fact, all the amendments, including the 10th amendment. Guns are artillery and naval arms, not the Tories like you, you have clearly expressed your preferences which are not American.
It is not up to me to tell you what to believe in, this is supposed to be a Republic, you attack people for having the right to believe in what they believe, You and your alter ego Ken.
To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to be ever a child. For what is man's lifetime unless the memory of past events is woven with those of earlier times?
Marcus Tullius Cicero
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Let's stick to bashing the Mobamba. We must ALL UNITED focus our powers on climbing up his ass in order to find the PUPPET MASTERS.
MY guess is that that string trail would lead to downtown Manhattan.
I will have none of it, that is my choice, you both may come and try to deny me that right, but it will not work well.
Gomp, I was watching this special on public tv about a couple and their love for each other helped them survive the holocaust. They described in vivid detail how luck also helped them survive. They were fed horse soup that was mostly rotten scraps and the bones of horses. If you were lucky, you were the one who got a little chunk of horse meat in their soup. That story was really shocking to me. It should remind us all that the human being is both capable of horrible deeds and great strength through great adversity. The perpetrators of those horrible deeds on their fellow man were socialists. The dangers we face tomorrow grow if we disregard the creeping creepiness of the socialists. Is that bliss? Barry has a nice garden and a big library, what he seeks is an audience to adore his every dictate.
Not getting sex from your skinny wife does not constitute 20 years of personal sacrifice for America. Come on Gomp, we kid, we joke. If you don’t have a sense of humor, what do you have? Oh yeah, you get our friend RLR.
RLR/AB…You must have been the kid on the playground that cried and ran away on one day and then came back for more the next. Quit your bitching dude. Dare to be different RLR.
CHIP:
No, Chambers Street.
They told me I could see New York
In all its spreading strength and power
From the city's highest spot,
Atop the famous Woolworth Tower.
HILDY:
The Woolworth Tower?
CHIP:
The Woolworth Tower.
HILDY:
Beat me, Daddy,
Did you say the Woolworth Tower?
CHIP:
I won't beat you,
But I said the Wool-
Gomp, if we had 100,000 like you, things would be...how should I say?.... a little different.
WRONG. The perpetrators of those deeds were DEMENTED PSYCHOPATHS who COINCIDENTALLY also happened to be 'socialists'.
Just like the DEMENTED PSYCHOPATHS who invaded the wrong country in response to 9/11 just happened to be Republicans or the DEMENTED PSYCHOPATHS who are currently sinking this nation's economy just happen to be democrats.
BIG picture folks, let's focus on the BIG picture...
The rotting soul are the self professed Americans in politics and business, and everyday life who are actively destroying America waiving Bibles, or Nietchze, or Hitler, or the Chinese cause as being superior to the beliefs of our founders.
Many point out the Socialism in others, but cannot see it in themselves.
"Not getting sex from your skinny wife does not constitute 20 years of personal sacrifice for America."
You are more clueless than Barry.
"MY guess is that that string trail would lead to downtown Manhattan."
Cold war targets...
Thanks James, they are out there...
Cold war targets LOL target hell we were and still are the fucking bulls eye .Even Gompers 50' deep bunker would not
save him were he lives.:)
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that was very funny...i'm in the same camp...a delicacy when fresh...unprocessed with no nitrates or nitrites...i could eat it every morning...
ken is not gobias...
rlr is not AB...
gobias is zara but then he is not hiding it nor has he ever denied it...he just wanted a new name presumably and he never tried to convince anyone that he wasn't the original gobias...so i see nothing disingenous about his name change...
save him were he lives.:) "
JTS, you know if the big one goes I will be outside eating ice cream, 14 minutes over the polar ice cap, no one gets away.
"100.000 more Gompers we would have no Bacon."
I never thought of that... We would just have to invade Mexico to liberate more of the mighty swine, LOL.
gobias is zara and more...
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i watch the IP addresses...ken and gobias/zara are not the same person...coming from completely different parts of the country based on isp shown in ip address...
DB...RLR and AB are from different parts of the country?? REALLY.
I do post links and a few articles for the devotees here but most of what I write is from the heart and spectacular and dead on. I give better than I get and that sometimes upsets the devotees. I am just too good. My comments get reposted often which is a tribute to my brilliance. I also try to give credit to the devotees when they strike gold while digging in their sandbox of ideas.
I enjoy the leftist rants and even the far left comics that are now afraid to hug Barry out in public. This is fun to me. Well, Ken is a pain only because he used to post using a crappy spam program to advertise his site(s). Now he has upgraded his spam program but there is still no back and forth. When the devotees talk to him, I laugh. That doesn’t bother me. His high frequency posting is annoying as they break up the flow.
As for RLR/AB, what is this big picture you want us to drill down on? I understand that you are a bit of a “see the forest for the trees” guy but my mind can see the forest and tell you what type of trees live in that forest. Most of my posts utilize my level three thinking. That may confuse some. I am no Chris Mathews. I am no Bill O’Reilly. I did not go to the University of Virginia but I did once sleep with a nice girl that had a UVA (is that the way) degree and she was smart and quite the wild chick. I wanted Duke to lose and I wanted UCONN (girls) to win. I am a Red Sox fan, best player ever, Pudge. I am an even bigger hockey fan but they have created a strange Disney like environment where fights break out which is very troubling. I am a big fan of the Go Daddy Girls, Danica is hot and very cool. I am now big into genealogy. I recently traced one branch of my own tree back almost 25 generations. Yes, around 25. I really like that new show, Who Do You Think You Are. I think Tiger Woods is not sick, he is an opportunist with bad taste in women. I am on team Sandra but I am not a big fan of her movies. Where can I buy my Oscar?
I also think that there is a lot of crème in that coffee (you figure that one out).
DB's ignored conscience
Homer Simpson
possibly Nancy Pelosi's wet nurse
Never said Ken is Gobias, I said it is his alter ego... The whirling Dervish.
What is with all the anti semitism lately? People just need to blame their own herds as much as others...
I DO. Particularly considering the fact that he not only CONTINUES to post separately under both (or more?) names, he even RESPONDS to his OWN posts. I think THAT is purposely duplicitous & misleading, even outright FRAUDULENT. BTW, I did NOT know that both are one & the same. I have better things to do than to go around trying to identify people with mental issues.
And to think that this asswipe has the AUDACITY to constantly accuse OTHERS of using multiple names...
when she was not as famous. she is a pretty face with not much talent .Trust me I KNOW people with more talent than her looking
for a ride for a long time.Sorry to burst your bubble but she is AA at its finest.
PS dont worry Gompers I pass pig farms on the way home i will stop and grab you one just dont stink my house up with grease.
I think i may have seen Ken does he have a green tin foil hat.Nothing like beating a guy or whatever down when they are not
around.
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thank you...
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2010/0407101purse1.html
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04-06/arctic-sea-ice-melting-season-posts-latest-start-on-record.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20001874-503544.html
Look, she probably doesn't even make my top ten...let me think...Evangeline Lily, Marion Cottilard, Heather Graham, Lily Allen, Bridget Regan, Mena Suvari, Emily Mortimer, Audrey Tautou, Rachel Shelley and Kristen Bell. Maybe it is top five for sporty athletic chicks.
That is what galls me, especially the responding to his own posts. I also find his accusations of liberalism amusing while he supported Judy for POTUS, or his accusations of Socialist while he spews Socialism in his own rants as he touches himself inappropriately.
He would have done well at the Salem witch trials.
"I recently traced one branch of my own tree back almost 25 generations. Yes, around 25."
Did that get you back to the monkeys in the trees throwing poop at one another?
"PS dont worry Gompers I pass pig farms on the way home i will stop and grab you one just dont stink my house up with grease."
I'm building the fire now, we will knock its hooves off, wipe its ass, and put it on a spit...
"I think i may have seen Ken does he have a green tin foil hat."
Was he spinning?
Brian also wrote this...http://www.theawl.com/2010/03/nina-hartley-in-the-valley
so I know he has his ear to the ground and the pulse of the nation.
Thank you Brian.
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thank you... "
It is always easier to blame others than to accept your own failures...
People will always choose a familiar hell over a unfamiliar heaven 100% of the time. Ultimately the true blame comes back to herd voters not minding "the store" (both parties are responsible, and the "my daddy can whip your daddy" mentality of the herds) , and the assumption that the non voters are happy with the status quo.
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surprised that you didn't...that was a pretty bizarre piece for a political writer...i guess you had heard of him...i had not...
I only wish it were that easy.
If Jindal Starts his speech with "COWARDS WITH NO BALLS OF THE BAMBOOZALED GENERATION" I will piss myself...