Today, I watched the President when he visited Wall Street to discuss his pending re-regulation of financial services. Some pundits called it his “closing argument”. Maybe, it was. I don’t know. However, it was certainly not the scolding many of us expected. In his campaign, he said there is no Red America nor Blue America, just America. Today, he said there is no Wall Street nor Main Street, just America, and I have to agree with that.
The nagging problem of derivatives was discussed. While the problem is bad, derivatives are certainly not evil. They serve very valuable purposes. Hopefully, the new bill will not kill them. As always, the details are in the details. If the 1300-page bill does damage to Wall Street, we have brought it upon ourselves and deserve what we get. The worst case is that we drive the “shady” derivatives offshore to another nation. If so, good riddance! With apologies to Gloria Gaynor . . . We will survive!
