Paul Volcker, the veteran US central banker and chairman of President Obama’s Economic Advisory Recovery Board, is confident that the ‘Volcker Rule’ forbidding commercial banks from proprietary trading will be passed into law in the US.
A version of his rule is contained in Section 619, an amendment to the Restoring American Financial Stability Bill going through the Senate at the moment.
Speaking yesterday (Thurdsay May 13) during a discussion at the London School of Economics with the school’s chairman Howard Davies, Volcker told listeners: “It’s being debated today. I think the prospects are pretty good.
“There are a lot of things in the bill that I'm not enamoured by,” he added, “[but] there are some basic elements which deserve support. This Goldman business has removed some doubt!”
Volcker was referring to fraud charges brought against Goldman Sachs by the Securities and Exchange Commission for failing to...