The Dodd financial reform bill is beginning to scare executives. However, it is not necessarily scaring bankers or Wall Street fat cats. It is scaring motor cycle manufacturers, college presidents, retailers, car dealers, and even coffee shop executives. All of these people and more are waking up to the Dodd bill’s threat to their businesses. If you read the Dodd financial reform bill carefully, the words “bank” or “financial” could refer to many more people than just bankers. Those words apply to any provider of “financial products” even if the …
For the past week or so, President Obama has been trying to jawbone banks into lending more in order to jump start the economy. He continued the push yesterday, meeting with a group of small community bankers to urge them to open up the spigots. Interestingly, he acknowledged that federal regulation is itself a barrier to increased lending. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, he said the White House is working on ways to decrease that red tape, but warned that: “We don’t have direct influence over …
Here we go again. Barely two months after President Obama sacked the CEO of General Motors — and less than a week after the outright nationalization of that firm was announced — the head of yet another U.S. corporation is in Washington’s sights. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is pushing for a “purge” of Citigroup’s top management, and already has contacted a potential candidate to replace CEO Vikram Pandit in the top job. The move comes only weeks after the Federal Reserve concluded — …
