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Volcker: Taking no prisoners

Paul Volcker is not only well-respected but almost a financial guru-legend in his own lifetime in the USA. So, to ignore his blistering attack on the entire financial system in America ought not be ignored - especially as the rest of the world is so much dependent on the financial well-being of the USA.

The Wall Street Journal Reports:

"Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker scrapped a prepared speech he had planned to deliver at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago on Thursday, and instead delivered a blistering, off-the-cuff critique leveled at nearly every corner of the financial system.

Standing at a lectern with his hands in his pockets, Volcker moved unsparingly from banks to regulators to business schools to the Fed to money-market funds during his luncheon speech.

He praised the new financial overhaul law, but said the system remained at risk because it is subject to future “judgments” of individual regulators, who he said would be relentlessly lobbied by banks and politicians to soften the rules.

“This is a plea for structural changes in markets and market regulation,” he said at one point."

Read on, here, as Volcker dissects each part of the entire American financial system - business schools to banking and the markets themselves.

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