Federal Regulators Accuse Banks Of Not Having Credible Crisis Plans, Would Need Another Bailout
Perhaps the biggest farce to result from the Dodd-Frank legislation designed to “rein in” banks was the ridiculous notion of “living wills” – a concept that makes zero sense in an environment where the failure of even one bank assures a systemic crisis and could – as the Lehman financial crisis showed – lead to the collapse of all other interlinked financial institutions.
Which is why we were not surprised to read this morning that federal regulators announced that five out of eight of the biggest U.S. banks do not have credible plans for winding down operations during a crisis without the help of public money.
Which is precisely the point: now that the precedent has been set and banks know they can rely on the generosity of taxpayers (with the blessing of legislators) why should they even bother planning; they know very well that if just one bank fails, all would face collapse, and the only recourse would be trillions more in taxpayer aid.
As Reuters writes, the “living wills” that the Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation jointly agreed were not credible came from Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, J.P. Morgan Chase, State Street, Wells Fargo. What is more impressive is that the Fed and FDIC found any living will to be credible.
Also amusing: it was only the FDIC which alone determined that the plan submitted by Goldman Sachs was not credible while the Goldman-dominated Fed gave its blessing; alternatively, the Federal Reserve Board on its own found that the plan of Morgan Stanley – Goldman’s arch rival in investment banking – not credible. Citigroup’s living will did pass, but the regulators noted it had “shortcomings.”
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