Influence legislation…end bank welfare

Hat tip reader rjs:

Reps. Alan Grayson and John Conyers Call for End to Bank Welfare, Tough Rules on Bank Capital – Yves Smith – Congressmen Alan Grayson and John Conyers have published a well-thought-out proposal on bank equity, with the objective of assuring that when banks do stupid things (which they do with great regularity, even before the era of casino banking, they’d embrace some new fad and run off the cliff together, like lemmings), they have enough capital to absorb losses. And that means a lot more capital than regulators are demanding they have now.  So I urge you to co-sign their letter (full text below) at http://nobankwelfare.com/.. It’s already at 15,300 signatures towards a target of 17,500. This letter relates specifically to proposed rules by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on how much equity systemically important banks should hold, which means defining how the ratio is determined and how it is applied to various bank entities. This is the sort of process in which public interest has an impact; Sheila Bair in her book Bull by the Horns said a petition by this site that garnered 12,000 signatures influenced a mortgage reform proposal.