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BE SMART ABOUT: Randal Quarles - Anti-Financial Regulation Yet Named Top Wall Street Watchdog
BE SMART ABOUT is an important series highlighting examples of those in power (or in danger of acquiring power) who you need to stay informed about so you can share this knowledge and together we can Be Smart and Actively Dissent. This election has put numerous individuals in positions of real, tangible power who are spending every hour of every day implementing policies in an efficient, destructive manner. They are doing the exact things their prior words, actions, and lobbyist bosses should have made obvious.
[In early July,] Trump named Randal K. Quarles, a former Treasury Department official, to serve as the Federal Reserve’s top watchdog overseeing Wall Street....
Today we discuss Randal Quarles who is a vocal opponent of financial regulation and would like to let Wall Street make their own rules a mere nine years after Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Wachovia, Merrill Lynch, Countrywide, AIG, Washington Mutual, and hundreds of smaller banks collapsed our economy. At that time, Quarles was in the Bush administration and saw no issues:
...remarks Quarles made while serving under Bush just before the financial crisis.... suggested the nation's big banks held enough capital to weather a potential housing downturn. "Many of his statements leading up to the crisis lead me to wonder whether he was asleep at the switch or willfully turning a blind eye to Wall Street abuses and excesses," Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio said. "The banks were not, as he said at the time, well-capitalized. And as a result, taxpayers paid billions to bail these banks out while Mr. Quarles and his company turned a profit out of the crisis."
Yet Quarles is nominated by Trump as the Federal Reserve's top watchdog over Wall Street, a position he admittedly would use to loosen regulations and ignore enforcement. The administration would like him to play a leading role in their plans to reduce financial regulation.
Quarles has criticized...constraining the largest banks. He is regarded as sympathetic.... to the industry’s view that regulation is restricting lending and impeding economic growth. He has also publicly criticized the Fed’s efforts to stimulate the economy, and will probably push for the central bank to end those efforts more quickly.
The entire reason the position exists is to safeguard our economy and protect our nation and its citizen from a repeat of Too-Big-Too-Fail financial institutions. Quarles is the exact opposite of what the position warrants.
"The No. 1 thing we need from the Fed's vice chair for supervision is a demonstrated willingness to stand up to the interests of the big banks that threaten the financial institutions," Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said during the hearing. "But when I look at your 30-year career, spinning through the revolving door of the private sector, Mr. Quarles, I just don't see it."
Sources:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/focusing-on-bank-size-missing-the-real-problem-1459466136