Moving to OCC and Fed oversight hasn't been easy for thrifts. Some of the problems have to do with differing priorities among agencies and natural competition among banking regulators.
Extending the law that provides unlimited deposit insurance on non-interest bearing demand deposits would send a signal that just maybe the industry is not fully healthy and still needs support.
What's needed are some approaches from outside the industry or government. I'd rather hear Stephen Hawking's views on housing than Shaun Donovan's or Tim Geithner's
The inclination of Congress is to take a pass on the issue of GSE reform until after the election. The problem is that the Treasury support expires in December.
Joseph Smith, the appointed monitor for the state attorneys general settlement, should start coordinating with the OCC and Fed on their foreclosure abuse agreements now.
Is the right way to hold banks accountable for servicing errors to require them to disgorge funds to borrowers who themselves may have been equally complicit in the process of helping to create mortgage fraud?
What the former Fed chairman does not tell us, because he cannot, is the name of a single bank that went under and required taxpayer support because of proprietary trading gone bad.
Supervisors must reach out to bankers and encourage appeals where the bank and the agency's front line are at an impasse, and hammer out procedures that give bankers no reason to fear retribution.
The Obama administration's reasons for charging banks $61 billion are disingenuous and transparently political. The tax has nothing to do with recouping Tarp costs or making the system safer.
