Thursday, May 17, 2012

The Federal Reserve Gets Ready to Expand The Too-Big-To-Fail-Club

"Pledge Week at the Fed"

The ire over a trading stumble at J.P. Morgan shows how little taxpayers enjoy standing behind too-big-to-fail institutions. Remarkably, the same Federal Reserve that didn't blow the whistle on J.P. Morgan's "whale" trades is planning to make more such institutions.

The exercise is part of the regulators' new power to declare so-called systemically important firms. Big banks are automatically on the list, but the Fed is writing rules to determine who else to tap as members.

Not that all the new pledges really want to join this fraternity of the financial elite. For starters, companies that aren't banks and don't ...

SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (paywall)

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