Why You Should Care About the Volcker Rule

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It seems to me the attention this act is getting demonstrates the power it can have. When we gave the Cooperate "Entity" the rights of a citizen we crossed over into "Never Land" and have suffered massive loss of quality of life on the whole. As ;ong as "We the People" are asleep at the wheel we can ecpect the rape and pillage by Cooperate America to continue until there is nothing left. I would also like to add that those same entities who have been yelling loudest about the Volker were first in line for the bail out...tired of it yet fokls?

Knowledge is Power of TX 12:17PM January 24, 2012

Extends Government Regulation with the Volker Rule?
Are you kidding me, did Carrot Top write that?
Extend Government Regulation, how about a little truth on that statement, with put in regulation on companies that do not regulate themselves, and behave in a legal or ethical way. This behavior, which happened after the repealing of "The Glass Stegal Act" which did what the "Volker Rule" did since the 1930s following the Great Depression of 1929. The Glass Stegal act prevented any major financial morass like the Great Recession under GWBush for almost 70 years. The lie the Republicans and this article try to perpetuate is that the Financial System can regulate itself. Well it didn't and the proof is in the pudding, the worst financial collapse since The Depression of 1929. MORE regulations? Really? How about some regulations to stop ruthless soulless entities, Corporations,(That are not a person) from raping our country of it's resources and jobs and financial stability. These Financial unethical, heartless, destructive, anti-free market companies have created not only the largest financial collapse in 80 years, but the economic income inequality in our country's history. Without regulation, it is a race to the bottom, truth as we have been shown explicitly is that corporations do not regulate themselves, and destroy stability and the lively hoods of Americans with the signing of one unethical deal after another.
Volker should stand, and these Right Wing unAmerican, and anti-free market people need to be put in jail for the crimes they have committed to this country's citizens.
The country is suffering from not from too many regulations, but the dismantling one by one almost all regulations over the past 70 years, to lead this country to a third world status, with 2% having over 90% of the whole country's wealth, while the 99-98% are falling below poverty lines every day.
We have become a Third world economy with 1st world prices and expenditures. How does the American dream survive in when the vast majority are in poverty and hopelessness.
The Government is not bad! It is a trust as established in the Constitution, "..For the people, by the people, to serve the people. "

R. F.C. of TX 9:53AM January 24, 2012

I can Brian Gardner, if I may. Maybe his memory fails him, as it was not long ago, but these companies DID indeed derive great benefits from the Government, which saved them from collapsing with Tax-Payer money.
Their ability to take risk at the rate they were doing so put the whole economy of the world at risk, this is why there is GREAT benefit in regulating them.
At what point? Really, has he been born after October 2008?

Hugo of KS 5:23AM January 24, 2012

1. Return the Volker rule to the 10 page original version. The bottom line is the economy cannot get along without the banks.
2. Risky trading can only be done with those moneys that depositors specifically designate for that purpose. Since these depositors may lose the funds if the trades are not profitable, they should have the lion's share of the profits from the trading.
3. The banks should divest themselves of their trading operations and the Glass-Steagle act should be re-enacted to remove the banks from the brokerage business.

Steve L of CA 11:06PM January 23, 2012

The anwser to the Volcker Rule simple. If banks don't want to follow it the banks will agree to forgo all governement aid should the bank fail. Also the banks states to customers that any money deposited is not covered by FDIC. Then they can continue to play the lotto, I mean the stock market through proprietary trading.

bob west of NY 5:57PM January 23, 2012

Even if the Volcker rule will become law, there will be a lot of other ways for the financial institutions to keep their trading activity at the same levels, or even increase it. The last financial crisis was a complex system failure. The Volcker rule is a poor attempt to regulate the places where regulation is not needed. The banks' trading departments have been doing great. The most unfair element is that banks are using monies they pay minimal interest for, to risky activities and get great returns. How about if there was a rule that the depositors can designate which percent of their deposits the banks can use for their''risky'' activities and get rewarded accordingly for it and have a watchdog overseeing that, instead of trying to eliminate a very profitable activity. Even remove the FDIC insurance for the deposits designated for use in these activities, just make sure that the depositors will not get cheated at the split.

James of 5:26PM January 23, 2012

One way to simplify this is to remove any law that says a corporation has the same rights of an individual since any intelligent person knows a corporation is not a person and should not be treated as such. If banks want to or chose to make proprietary trades then such trades should eliminate any backing by FDIC insurance and risks taken by the management should be shared by all management as well as rewards equally. Also the share holders should have voting rights as to commissions and pay for management, board members, and executives. Thus everyone in the corporation and share holders would share the risks and rewards and tax payers would not be on the hook for crooked or bad management decisions.

TNflash of TN 4:45PM January 23, 2012

More Federal insanity into matters it knows little about (ie. ANYTHING involing the Private Financial Sector); cannot enforce and after it writes a Politically motivated Huge nightmare of a Bill, lets it rust into History and cause all types of unintended consequences well into the future that it could give a rat's a__ about. Oh yeah, and China, the Bric's, europe are gonna follow these restrictive practices for their Banks; I think not. Work for a foreign bank, kids.

mark of NJ 8:32PM January 22, 2012

Great article. I especially love the portion quoted by http://doddfranksummary.com, which is what brought me here to read the whole thing. Great article and great title -- this rule is so important and so ignored by the general public that it's a real shame.

Kyle Reddingfield of VA 8:54PM January 19, 2012

The only people who think FDIC-backed banks should try to make money via prop trading are the people who run those banks, and lemmings who blindly believe every word those people say.
Just about everyone else who thinks about this for more than five seconds knows this is a terrible idea.

Y K of CA 2:39AM January 19, 2012