Banks blindsided by former Bush official
'The biggest banks are still too big to fail and continue to pose a significant, ongoing risk to our economy.'
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari— who helped run President George W. Bush’s 2008 bank bailout plan —Politics nothing to do with curbing big banks: Fed's Kashkarisounded a lot like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren
in recent comments he made. ....... Wall Street woke up with a new problem Tuesday: a Republican Goldman Sachs alum using his new bully pulpit atop the Federal Reserve to suggest the biggest banks should break up. .....Sanders immediately issued a a press release saying he was "delighted" by Kashkari's remarks.
..... the way to fix the problem might be breaking up the biggest banks or forcing them to hold so much capital that they become public utilities. ..... Kashkari's plan shocked Washington's financial policy wonks and lobbyists who have spent years fighting over rules still being implemented from the 2010 Dodd-Frank law. Kashkari's unexpected campaign — in which he says there needs to be "transformational" change — has the potential to shake up the discussion among banks, regulators and politicians...... A big part of the surprise was that Kashkari, who ran for governor in California as a Republican in 2014 and has been at the Fed for less than two months, was taking on the issue. But he can make a compelling argument that he knows what he's talking about firsthand....... He served in the Treasury Department from 2006 to 2009, and at the end of his tenure in the Bush administration, he oversaw the financial crisis bailout known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program...... Kashkari's announcement made waves on the campaign trail, the Hill and K Street, though some bank lobbying groups are taking their time before going on the defensive against a top Fed official....... Tim Pawlenty, former governor of Minnesota who is now president of the Financial Services Roundtable, said regulations requiring larger reserves and decreased risk should be finalized and their impact studied "before policymakers can credibly call for them to be repealed and replaced with actions that could put American banks at a major global disadvantage and have other unintended consequences.” ....... John Dearie, acting chief executive of the Financial Services Forum, said breaking up global financial institutions based in the United States "would ensure that one of the U.S.’s most competitive global industries serving companies small and large is turned over to banks based outside the United States.” ........While Kashkari earned praise from Sanders, he is entertaining ideas that appear to go beyond the comfort zone of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has run on a regulatory platform that's more focused on risks outside the traditional banking sector.
Republicans haven't spent as much time digging into bank regulation and too big to fail in their debates...... Kashkari said he plans to deliver a plan to Congress by the end of the year.
it highlighted the U.S. central bank's independence from politics. ..... he urged Congress to consider breaking up massive banks...... Kashkari, a candidate for California governor in 2014 who last month began the Minneapolis job, acknowledged he had not consulted broadly with lawmakers or with his colleagues at the Fed, arguing it was appropriate to go public with his views before getting feedback, to which he "looked forward." ..... Bernie Sanders, a Democratic senator and presidential candidate who has tapped into anger toward Wall Street, said on Tuesday he was "delighted" with Kashkari's stance. Asked about this on Wednesday, Kashkari said: "I've never met Senator Sanders and I don't know him and I've never spoken to him. This is not about politics." ....... "If we can demonstrate to the American people that there is a diversity of views within the (Fed) and people are outspoken, what better way to demonstrate that we are not political or beholden to the (White House) or any political party," Kashkari said. "I think this shows more independence." ...... A banking trade group, the Financial Services Forum, said the Fed's own stress tests show the largest banks can now survive a "far worse" crisis than the last, and warned that breaking them up would benefit foreign competitors....."I think that they are surprised and I expect them to push back pretty hard," Kashkari said of bankers.China warns U.S. of 'serious consequences' over Washington plaza name
China's Foreign Ministry warned the United States on Tuesday there would be "serious consequences" if a plaza in front of the Chinese embassy in Washington was named after a pro-democracy dissident and Nobel Peace Prize winner...... By unanimous voice vote, the U.S. Senate on Friday backed a plan to name the plaza after Liu Xiaobo, jailed for 11 years in 2009 on subversion charges for organizing a petition urging an end to one-party rule......"The U.S. has been at its wits' end in dealing with China as it is reluctant to employ military threats or economic sanctions that may backfire. The only option for Washington seems to be petty actions that disturb China," it said in an editorial.....The bill had been introduced by Senator Ted Cruz, a leading contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. A White House spokesman has said President Barack Obama's senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill and it was not an effective way to secure Liu's release.Fed’s Kashkari: 25% Capital Requirement May Be Right for Banks
The Minneapolis Fed’s new president discusses breaking up the biggest banks, monetary policy and his first Fed policy meeting and what he learned from the front lines of the financial crisis
Protests Widen As India Debates When Speech Is Sedition
Students at one of India's premier universities say the government is wielding a colonial-era sedition law as a means to crush dissent. ...... The clash pits ultra-conservative forces of Narendra Modi against the university with detractors calling the tax-payer funded school "a nest of anti-national activity." ..... Tensions erupted at the university after students organized an event last week to protest the hanging in 2013 of Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri separatist convicted of a 2001 terrorist attack on India's Parliament......Some at the gathering shouted anti-India slogans that condemned Guru's execution. "Afzal, your death will bring revolution," one slogan said. "India should shatter into pieces," said another. ...... JNU is sometimes likened to the University of California, Berkeley, with left-wing traditions and distinguished ranks of graduates including prominent politicians, journalists and artists. ........ Prahash Karat, the former general secretary of the Communist Party and former student union president, addressed students this week, declaring, "JNU is a prime target for this [Modi] regime." ...... Since Modi's rise to power, some of his most devoted followers have pursued a hard-line agenda: They have incited against those who eat cow meat, demanded the revision of history books and tried to restrict the way Indians consume entertainment. ......JNU row: Is BJP mistaken over anti-nationalism?Nalin Kohli, a spokesman for Modi's ruling party, says the student protest against Afzal Guru's hanging should not be protected as free speech.
........ Mohandas Gandhi was tried by the British under the same sedition law now being invoked against student leader Kumar. .... a warning by India's home minister that anyone making anti-India slogans will "not be spared" has sent a chill through the campus......"I think it is more a case of actually criminalizing dissent," he says. "It's a larger witch hunt for people who don't agree with the agenda of the government."
The situation at Jawaharlal Nehru University, which followed earlier developments at Hyderabad Central University, raises critical questions on BJP's nationalism, what the party considers acceptable what it deems to be anti-national.
A minister in the BJP government General VK Singh, on Tuesday, said: "You consume the nation's foodgrains, reside in the nation and get education here. If after that you abuse the nation, then you are traitor." ...... On whether criticism of the country is anti-national, BJP spokesperson Mittal said - "I had thought that we would place all these comments under perspective of what happened at JNU. There is no criticism of India. It is the destruction of India that has been demanded there. They said - 'Bharat ke tukde karne hain' [Let's break India into parts], 'Bharat ko barbaad karna hai' [Let's destroy India]. This is not criticising India or the government of India."Cruz tops GOP field for first time in new national poll; voters split over Supreme Court vote
Cruz has the backing of 28% of Republican voters nationwide, unseating Trump, who won the support of 26% ..... Marco Rubio comes in third with 17% support ..... In South Carolina, Trump leads Cruz 38%-22%, and in Nevada, Trump is beating Rubio 45%-19%.5 possible Supreme Court picks that could make Republicans squirm
Poll finds bleak outlook for a Bloomberg independent bid
in a hypothetical race with Donald Trump as the Republican nominee and Bernie Sanders leading the Democratic ticket -- presumably the scenario most conducive to a Bloomberg victory -- Trump was chosen by 37% of likely voters, Sanders by 30%, and Bloomberg by 16%. ..... Without Bloomberg in the mix, Trump and Sanders were in a dead heat — 44% to 43%, within the poll’s margin of error. Bloomberg drew 13 percentage points from Sanders and only seven from Trump. ...... Bloomberg’s mayoral record contains much to please (and dismay) Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives. But to the extent that voters outside metro New York know Bloomberg, they may think of him more as the gun control advocate who tried to ban sales of sodas over 16 ounces than a business entrepreneur who backed stop-and-frisk police tactics. ..... Bloomberg has an impressive résumé: a self-made billionaire who founded a global financial information company; a philanthropist who’s given billions; a mayor who presided over historic reductions in crime, helped the city recover from 9/11 and banned smoking in bars. ...... Bloomberg’s pollster, Douglas Schoen, says his man has the money, message, independence and time to fill that need: "I don't think the conventional wisdom'' —that Bloomberg is perceived as a New York nanny-state liberal — "is going to last. The mayor would be able to build support rapidly.'' ....... But Bloomberg is a stiff campaigner who managed to get just 51% of the mayoral vote in 2009 despite spending $102 million ($174 a vote). His issue would be his own competence and non-partisanship, hardly a rousing call to arms. His region hasn’t produced a president since 1960, and its loyalty might be claimed by one or more of his rivals (Sanders, Clinton, Trump). ..........JNU row: Kanhaiya Kumar and the indestructible Bihari DNAHe’s a more dedicated proponent of gun control than many Democrats, and a more enthusiastic defender of Wall Street than many Republicans.
...... Schoen, the Bloomberg pollster, admits it’s vital that any third-party candidate make voters feel victory is possible. ...... It’s easy to see why Bloomberg is tempted to run, given his enormous ambition and low threshold for boredom. For 12 years, he had what is often described as the nation’s second biggest job. In the New York magazine interview in 2013, he admitted that philanthropy — even on his own heroic scale – would not be enough to keep him satisfied after leaving Gracie Mansion. .......Bloomberg turned 74 on Valentine’s Day. This would almost certainly be his last shot at an office he’s wanted to hold since he was a teenager.
Like Nitish and Lalu in 2015, this son of a poor Begusarai family is causing serious trouble for Modi-Shah team.
The Bihari DNA has done it again. In 2015, it beat the shine out of the NDA campaign spearheaded by the double-cannon Modi-Shah attack team into smithereens, pieces of which are still being hunted for by anxious Bihar BJP workers who hailed their victory in Patna on November 8 a tad too prematurely by distributing laddoos and then retreated into PTSD. ....... nothing gets the goat of the Modi-Shah team like Shatrughan Sinha who keeps faulting the government for every mistake, from the micro detail to the giga gorilla. ...... Then there is Kirti Azad, who has blown soft, good and hard at the edifice that Arun Jaitley occupies. ..... Despite several stares from the party president, Kirti Azad is still at it - thanks to that DNA. ...... It's not that all of Bihar has anti-BJP DNA, there's the venerable Giriraj Singh whose claim to fame is not for being the minister of state for micro, small and medium enterprises. He specialises in the killer quote, the one that kills his party, a self-inflicted wound, like the threat to send anyone who opposes Modi to Pakistan. ....... In his rousing speech (yes, yes, the same one which got him arrested since the Delhi Police still doesn't know if he committed sedition himself), Kanhaiya Kumar defends JNU and the right to speech while condemning the pro-Pakistan slogans. His shrill voice speaks of things which every campus should have, instead of colluding with the establishment and state to count the credits by keeping mum and going with the grain. That Bihari DNA. ..... PS: The writer is not of Bihari descent nor has he been to Bihar, but lives among Biharis.
Freedom 251: India firm to launch 'world's cheapest' smartphone
"This is our flagship model and we think it will bring a revolution in the industry" ..... At present, the firm imports parts from overseas and assembles them in India, but plans to make its phones domestically within a year
Top Trump aide to Pope: Vatican completely "surrounded by walls" https://t.co/UqJfKS5yJn pic.twitter.com/6wEeXuPSJj
— The Hill (@thehill) February 18, 2016
Pope Francis: "A person who thinks only about building walls, & not bridges, is not Christian". @RealDonaldTrump
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