12/13/09 Stockholm, Sweden – Former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, keeping his name in the news, remains dour about the economy. This weekend in Germany, he opened up about the still underway crisis and how the few signs of economic life he’s witnessed are mainly the result of government intervention.
According to Bloomberg:
“…Volcker said the financial crisis was still continuing and the U.S. economy is ‘pretty dependent’ on government support. The test for policymakers now is to time the exit from their emergency fiscal and monetary stimulus, he said.
“‘You’ve not got much room for exiting right now,’ Volcker said.”
He went on to explain, for at least the second time this week, that banks in crisis should not be aided unless they stick to plain vanilla activities:
“The ‘safety net’ provided by the U.S. government ‘should not be extended beyond the core commercial-banking business,’ Volcker, 82, said in an interview yesterday at Deutsche Bank AG’s Berlin office, where he was attending a conference. ‘They can do trading and do anything they want, but then they shouldn’t have access to the safety net.’
“…[he] called for regulators to provide government support only to banks that provide essential services like deposit-taking and business payments. He has suggested prohibiting them from owning or sponsoring hedge funds, private-equity funds or from engaging in proprietary trading.”
Volcker appears committed to keeping these issues in the public eye, and we’ll keep vigilant about what traction he finds. More details are available in Bloomberg’s coverage of Goldman trading activity and government safety nets.
Rocky Vega
Rocky Vega is publisher of Agora Financial International, where he advances the growth of Agora Financial publishing enterprises outside of the US. Previously, he was publisher of The Daily Reckoning, and founding publisher of both UrbanTurf and RFID Update -- which he ran from Brazil, Chile, and Puerto Rico -- as well as associate publisher of FierceFinance. Rocky has an honors MS from the Stockholm School of Economics and an honors BA from Harvard University, where he served on the board of directors for Let’s Go Publications, Harvard Student Agencies, and The Harvard Advocate.
The Daily Reckoning is your premier source for making sense of the news Washington and Wall Street generate. Each business day, The Daily Reckoning calls on its stable of world-class writers and thinkers to show you how to get ahead.
Start your 100% FREE subscription to The Daily Reckoning today and you’ll get a free research report, “How to Survive the Fall of Social Security.” Simply enter your email address below to get your free report and join over 495,000 worldwide Daily Reckoning subscribers!
We Respect Your Privacy and We will
Never Share or Sell Your Email Address
The horse has left the barn and swam to China.
Volcker said the financial crisis was still continuing ?
does that mean 9.8mh ignorant fraud is
naturally continuing hyper-accelerately
to stack & grow total all ? bing go !
it is 9.8mh
which one ? choose !
1. 9.8mh ignorant disabilities
2. 9.8mh evils
3. 9.8mh total all environments
don’t consider it.
it’s the global total all in 9.8mh