Speaking just 10 days before the start of the G20 summit in Pittsburgh - at which world leaders are set to discuss curtailing bankers' bonuses among a raft of potentially restrictive reforms - he will also put the amount of capital banks hold on their balance sheets back at the top of the agenda, acknowledging that the demise of Lehman and Bear Stearns were a by-product of inadequate capital requirements.
In a wide-reaching speech on the need for regulatory reform in order to avert another financial crisis he will call on the US Senate banking committee to kick-start work on these reforms as soon as possible.
Speaking from Federal Hall on Wall Street, just steps from the New York Stock Exchange, President Obama will stress that regulators and legislators not only in the US, but around the world, need to take the next steps to tighten financial regulation.
If banks are to hold more capital against losses, and rules are to be tightened, where is that increased capital to come from except witholding more liquidity from the market?
Or will the fed leave the automagic software running for an hour extra each night for each bank?
Increased, taxes, less cash to loan, and a new incipient trade war does any of this sound like Hoover and SMoot Hawley to anyone?
The stimulus program has done VERY LITTLE in terms of small business loans, and small businesses expanding, purchasing (or leasing) new capital goods, or taking ANY RISK AT ALL. Banks have already witheld a great deal of the capital which certainly must have gone to them from TARP, STIM I and STIM II, and now Obama prepares to suck more into reserves.
How these people have all fooled themselves into imagining they have learned something from 1932 is enlightening and frightening to behold.
If banks requrie tighter supervision and higher reserve amounts then this is something done gradually and AFTER RECOVERY IS ESTABLISHED BY GROWING, AND ADEQUATE EMPLOYMENT.
Can anyone spell double dip?
