Robert Reich: Wall Street can't have it both ways - too big to fail, and also able to make wild bets anywhere around the world

our criminal bankers really like their tbtf, protected status...

robert reich in truthout...

One advantage of being a huge Wall Street bank is you get bailed out by the federal government when you make dumb bets. Another is you can choose where around the world to make the dumb bets, thereby dodging U.S. regulations. It’s a win-win.

Wall Street would like to keep it that way.

For two years now, squadrons of Wall Street lawyers and lobbyists have been pressing the Treasury, Comptroller of the Currency, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, SEC, and the Fed to go easier on the Street for fear that if regulations are too tight, the big banks will be less competitive internationally.

Translated: They’ll move more of their business to London and Frankfurt, where regulations are looser.

Meanwhile, the Street has been warning Europeans that if their financial regulations are too tight, the big banks will move more of their business to the US, where regulations will (they hope) be looser.

[....]

If Wall Street banks demand a free rein overseas, the least we should demand is they be broken up here.

our super-rich elites will fight to their last breath to maintain their power over us and their ability to command the world's resources and reservoirs of capital...

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