As President Obama announced he would support reforms not allowing banks to own own, invest or trade "unrelated to serving customers," the banks think they may have already found a loophole. By claiming that its hedge fund investments or trading operations are "related to serving customers" - either by allowing outside clients to invest in the funds or treating their own employees as customers in the hedge funds — the banks believe that less than 1 percent of their overall business would be affected. Time to bring back Glass Stegal - forcing banks to decide if they're going to be investment houses or banks that offer checking accounts and mortgages - and quit nibbling around the edges. Reagonomics/Clintonomics has done so much damage to this country with things like the Graham-Leach-Bliley and Commodity Futures Modernization Acts, which enabled all this gambling by the banks by rolling back New Deal protections. This administration should just directly return to sanity.
Have the Banksters Already Have Found a Loophole?
By Louise