12/09/09 Stockholm, Sweden – Former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker decided to set straight a group of top-ranking bankers at a conference held yesterday in the UK. The bankers, concerned that new regulation could constrain future financial innovation, were shut down by a “clearly irritated” Volcker.
According to the Times Online:
“…he criticised them for failing to grasp the magnitude of the financial crisis and belittled their suggested reforms … for their failure to acknowledge a problem with personal rewards and questioned their claims for financial innovation.
“On the subject of pay, he said: ‘Has there been one financial leader to say this is really excessive? Wake up, gentlemen. Your response, I can only say, has been inadequate.’”
Volcker went on to say:
“I wish someone would give me one shred of neutral evidence that financial innovation has led to economic growth — one shred of evidence…”
Read more about the intense outburst by the Economic Recovery Advisory Board chairman in the Times’ coverage of the Future of Finance Initiative event.
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.
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