OBAMA TO REIGN IN ABUSE BY BANKS

Finally, something that I can agree with the administration on. Obama is listening to Volcker and trying to put Glass-Steagall, or at least some form of it, back in place. This is what the Federal Government is supposed to do; keep the playing field level and open to all through sensible restriction on free market abuses. We should have never allowed any company to become "too big to fail". What he is proposing goes a long way towards ending the abuses in the financial businesses sector that have created the collapse in the system that we are entering into.

We've got a long way to go but this is a vital first step. Good job!

"Obama is placing a new emphasis on Wall Street regulations, with a goal of limiting the financial sector to smaller, less interconnected firms. The complexity of the financial industry forced the government in 2008 to approve massive bailouts to prevent a systemwide economic collapse.

The proposal would seek to limit bank consolidation and ensure that banks, and financial institutions that contain banks, cannot invest in hedge funds or other funds "unrelated to serving customers" for profit.

In making the announcement, the president was flanked by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and William Donaldson, who was appointed by President George W. Bush as head of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Both men have advocated tighter banking restrictions. Volcker heads the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

Obama last year proposed a series of measures to tighten the reins on financial institutions in hopes of preventing a recurrence of the crisis that struck the country's financial system in the fall of 2008.

His announcement Thursday broadens those measures, particularly by endorsing Volcker's proposal to restrict proprietary trading by commercial banks. Such a limit would separate commercial banks from investment banks, a line that was blurred a decade ago by the repeal of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act. That act originally separated commercial and investment banking."

Fox News