By John Tamny of RealClearMarkets
Last week it was announced that the Federal Reserve would move forward on its plan to police and restrict pay among employees of large financial institutions. At first blush it’s hard not to be just a little bit sympathetic toward these efforts.
Indeed, while the symbol that is Wall Street talks a good game about markets and capitalism, many firms were more than eager to take bailout money, not to mention willing to change their regulatory status to that of bank holding companies in order to access taxpayer subsidized cash during a time of need. All that, plus during the crisis period of a year ago, rather than ask for less help and less regulation from Washington, financial institutions lobbied for a suspension of mark-to-market accounting in concert with curbs on short selling. “Capitalistic” does not describe Wall Street.
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