Memo to employees at big Wall Street banks and securities firms: Be careful what you say on the elevator. You might be surrounded by regulators. As part of a push to prevent another financial crisis, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency are increasing the number of examiners who go to work every day at the companies they regulate. Much like reporters assigned to a military unit during war, these regulatory "embeds" get unprecedented access to financial firms such as Bank of America Corp.,Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley.Can you imagine a government employee embedded in your business? And as far as the comparison with military embeds, this is completely wrong. The military embeds journalists to keep an eye on them so that they don't wander off on their own. Banker embeds are embedded by the government and can go and do whatever they please. More from WSJ:
The Fed's latest how-to "Commercial Bank Examination Manual" is 1,808 pages long, and examiners have the power to "review all books and records maintained by a financial institution." In addition to policing the rules, Fed examiners should "identify vulnerabilities early enough to head off major problems," says Daniel Tarullo, a Federal Reserve governor ...I don't really feel sorry for the banksters, but this is a seriously dangerous precedent. The general view of the role of government has gotten as far from a Mises-Hayekian view, that detailed rules can not be successfully implemented by governement at a micro level, as possible. Quite simply the general population now holds the view that government micro-management is the only solution. How else could there not be great uproar over the government micro-management of passengers at airports to the micro-management of banks.
Regulators are also pushing examiners to challenge chief executives and boards of directors. "It should be a drop-by relationship," says Sarah Dahlgren, who took over the New York Fed's financial-institution supervision group in January after leading a team that monitored the New York Fed's loan to insurer American International Group Inc. The No. 1 embed at each firm is expected to meet with the CEO at least once a month. Michael Brosnan, an OCC official overseeing supervision of large U.S. banks, says the agency is "increasingly involved in governance and oversight" of the 15 largest banks.
The associated collapse in the standard of living that will be the result from this micro-management will, given the current views of the masses, result in even more micro-management to "solve" the collapse and a further decline in the standard of living.
I am truly beginning to think we are doomed.
Ever see Futurama; the cartoon kinda like the Simpsons? One character, Hermes Conrad, is government employee, who is embedded in their delivery business. Life imitating art! Great show by the way.
ReplyDeleteBanking Commissars, how wonderful.
ReplyDeleteDoomed?, beginning just now RW. With the TSA gropings, Homeland Defense flying unmanned surveillance in USA airspace, local police killing law abiding citizens everyday, 'if you see something, say something' reports coming in, IRS, endless privacy intrusions by governments on all levels, regulations, regulations. This is a fascist state, under a dictator and big bank and big corporation control. Not beginning, but moving on very nicely for the opposition, not us smucks.
ReplyDeleteAh, now you're wising up.
ReplyDeleteWe ARE doomed. But there's one good thing about it.
We deserve it.
Just read Taibbi's anti-Christian hit piece on Bachmann....I mean anti-Christian, because that's what it's really about.
Hatred of the possibility that other people might subject themselves to norms that liberal society has declared outlaw.
Nothing to do with anything else.
He sounded like a Nazi. Talk about hate speech.
The same crude attempt to paint your adversary as insane...smear her with references to pornography. The same vicious mud-slinging.
Mind you, I have my doubts about Bachmann on many counts.
But I'm almost tempted to vote for her just to show there's a price to pay when you write this kind of trashy journalism.
There's also a deep-seated inferiority that comes out in it.
It's clear he's intimidated at some subconscious level, so he has to convince himself that she is mentally non compos.
Hey, Matt. Here's a short list of people who thought God spoke to them and gave them guidance:
Isaac Newton
Joseph Haydn
Sreenivas Ramanujan
W. B Yeats (since you mention him)
Joan of Arc (whom you all mention)
Gandhi (every step of the way)
Abraham Lincoln
and, of course,
Jesus Christ..
Now what were you saying about Michele?
Lila, I love your comments here, and on other forums (like Daily Bell) and always enjoy reading them.
ReplyDeleteDespite Tiabbi's occasional (very occasional) "on the mark" columns, his misses far outweigh his hits. Thank you for all the work you do to expose the mindless group(anti)think that pervades most mainstream leftists (and rightists).
When are you going to start your own website?
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ReplyDeleteActually, since Bachmann isn't considered all that strong a candidate for President, what I think Taibbi is engaged in is misdirection -
ReplyDeleteAnyone who keeps fueling the kulturkampf is probably engaged in that anyway, maybe not always knowingly.
Please read the comments below Dr. Bramhall's article and see how much resonance there is among working-class leftists to JOIN with the Tea=Party on many issues and to refuse the kulturkampf or at least put it on the back-burner.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.opednews.com/a/133569?show=votes#allcomments
Under our present system, the banks and large financial institutions are government-backed (bailed), if not owned (e.g. Citi, AIG, Freddie, Fannie). If they were truly private, I would object to the presence of regulators. They are only private in the sense that management grabs as much money as possible while the public holds the bag on losses. The regulators at these institutions now just have a shorter walk to the human resources departments of these institutions when they are ready to move on up from govt service.
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