Notebook, 15 June 2012: Beyond the Volcker Debate

William K. Black: “The scale of fraud is immense.”

Just for starters, let’s stop calling JP Morgan Chase a “bank.”

Tim Ryan is CEO and president of SIFMA, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, the lobbying arm of a broad coalition of Wall Street (let’s not forget Chicago here) traders and brokers, tries to recast the debate and the “will of Congress” in response to comments made by CNBC economics reporter Steve Liesman on Jamie Dimon’s testimony on the proposed Volcker Rule. Ryan erroneously claims that regulators are thwarting the will of Congress by proscribing activities Congress specifically wanted banks to perform. This isn’t exactly accurate (Congress couldn’t agree to any substantive measure and sent mixed messages), but let’s skip that as besides the point for my purposes here, except to say that proposing a quantitative risk ceiling is a real proposal which I never expected to hear from SIFMA, which has a history of distancing itself from the truth and playing legislative hardball. Kudos to Tim Ryan. (Some things are really hard.) Quantitative risk ceilings and quantitative baselines are indeed needed throughout the financial services sector.