Ben White argues that Washington’s “war” with Wall Street is largely over. “And Washington won in a blowout.”
“Washington’s big victory came via widespread public outrage at the financial industry, which paved the way for a strong reform bill,” White writes.
“And after President Barack Obama signed Dodd-Frank into law in 2010, the industry made mistake after mistake — from the interest rate rigging scandal to mortgage-foreclosure “robo-signing” — making it essentially impossible for the industry’s lobbyists to beat back any of the newly imposed regulations.”
Dennis Kelleher, chief executive of Better Markets sums it up: “There is no question that many of the highest-risk activities, which happened to be the most profitable activities for Wall Street, are now at least reduced and often totally gone … They’ve had to exit hedge funds and private equity funds and they sold off any business with ‘proprietary trading’ on the door.”
