Letters: Banking should be boring
Re “Giant loss exposes banks’ risky side,†May 31
Matt Levine, a former Goldman Sachs derivatives trader, is representative of the mind-set that is completely sanguine about the trading loss by JPMorgan Chase & Co. of at least $2 billion. He said: “If a plane crashes, it doesn’t mean we should go back to horses.â€
Agreed. But we would never allow the same level of rules, regulations and safety restrictions for our nation’s commercial aviation industry that we would for the daredevil sport of air racing.
We need to make banking boring again.
Glenn Johnson-Grau
Los Angeles
Re “We need a modern version of 1933 law,†Column, May 30
Michael Hiltzik speaks to the government’s inability to properly regulate the financial sector. His solution is an updated Glass-Steagall law.
Since this law’s repeal in 1999, we’ve had 13 years in which to modernize regulations on financial firms involved in short-term borrowing (derivatives and money market instruments). But the Republicans are a proxy for Wall Street in Washington and will never allow such a regulation to pass.
In short, we have a solution and the regulatory framework, but Republicans will never pass a new Glass-Steagall Act even if doing so would be good for the country.
John Boos
Placentia
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