For everyone's safety, it might be a good idea to put warning signs up and down Wall Street:
DANGER: BANKERS WILL LASH OUT IF PROVOKED.
As President Obama joins taxpayers in bearing down on the big banks' reckless behavior, the bankers are striking back - already hard at work on ways to sidestep any new rules that might be put in their way.
Bloomberg reports that the the leaders of some of the world's biggest banks "met during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to plot how to reassert their influence with regulators and governments." Instead of figuring out ways to reform their banks, they're figuring out ways to prevent reform from happening.
And they're not being shy about it, either. Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America, said he and his fellow bankers are concerned about "too much regulation," like the ones the President has proposed. The bankers also called on the public to stop blaming banks and complaining about their pay; As one CEO put it, banks are playing a "noble role" in economic recovery (I swear I'm not joking).
This comes on the heels of yesterday's WSJ article that reported how banks are bending their own rules to give executives above and beyond what their standard pay and bonus packages provide. They're hoping taxpayers will listen to what they say and not watch what they do.
We've got to watch their every move. We need to let the big banks know we are going to call them out every time they do something greedy that compromises our economic recovery. You can start by joining the thousands of taxpayers who have already called on the FCIC to investigate the Wall Street bankers' pay. We've got to send a message to the bankers that we will not stand idly by while they set us up for another financial collapse.
Fool us once, shame on them. Fool us twice, shame on us.
DANGER: BANKERS WILL LASH OUT IF PROVOKED.
As President Obama joins taxpayers in bearing down on the big banks' reckless behavior, the bankers are striking back - already hard at work on ways to sidestep any new rules that might be put in their way.
Bloomberg reports that the the leaders of some of the world's biggest banks "met during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to plot how to reassert their influence with regulators and governments." Instead of figuring out ways to reform their banks, they're figuring out ways to prevent reform from happening.
And they're not being shy about it, either. Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America, said he and his fellow bankers are concerned about "too much regulation," like the ones the President has proposed. The bankers also called on the public to stop blaming banks and complaining about their pay; As one CEO put it, banks are playing a "noble role" in economic recovery (I swear I'm not joking).
This comes on the heels of yesterday's WSJ article that reported how banks are bending their own rules to give executives above and beyond what their standard pay and bonus packages provide. They're hoping taxpayers will listen to what they say and not watch what they do.
We've got to watch their every move. We need to let the big banks know we are going to call them out every time they do something greedy that compromises our economic recovery. You can start by joining the thousands of taxpayers who have already called on the FCIC to investigate the Wall Street bankers' pay. We've got to send a message to the bankers that we will not stand idly by while they set us up for another financial collapse.
Fool us once, shame on them. Fool us twice, shame on us.
