Obama to Banks: Give the People Calculators

Reader Comments
Back to blog

Why should the banks shoulder this cost at all? Why should this be yet another unfunded mandate? Let Yobama and Company provide standard calculators to level the playing field.
Although there are hundreds of calculators out there, most people are too stupid, ignorant, or lazy to take advantage of them, even if they can figure out how to navigate to the website. These people need to be held by the hand over and over. When it comes to thinking about finance and numbers, most people are illiterate or fatalistic. Numbers overwhelm them.
And even if these people's hands would be held, a majority will come back and complain that they were misled if things don't go right. So yet another fiduciary responsibility of the banks will be to make sure their customers understand the calculators they are being taught to use.

Jimmy of MD 11:10PM June 21, 2009

A comprehensive set of stress tests that address deteriorating credit quality and/or market value of portfolios, inability to roll short-term debt, default of a major counterparty, etc. should do the trick. The stress tests would get adjusted periodically to pick up the latest trends. The rest is implementation and oversight to make sure institutions are applying the stress tests properly.
When it comes to regulation, conceptual simplicity is key. Creating thousands of complex rules and setting up layers of bureaucracy will only allow financial institutions to find another loophole. That’s what happened with the Basle Accord.
Unfortunately simplicity doesn’t get votes, and when you have an administration that runs a permanent campaign, populism sometimes becomes the mantra.
http://www.SoberLook.com

Walter Kurtz of NY 3:59PM June 18, 2009

online this and online that is all well and good....but what if you're one of the americans who either by choice or happenstance doesn't have internet? Or you're one of those people who can barely figure out how to check your email?
The one change I would like is for Sallie Mae and Citibank to give me my amortization schedule NOW! Why do I have to wait til I'm in repayment to find out how much I need to pay them? The feds gave me theirs...why can't the private sector?

veronica of NH 1:13PM June 18, 2009

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce today welcomed the administration’s proposal to regulate U.S. financial markets, but expressed disappointment with its plan saying it unnecessarily adds new layers of regulation and does not provide comprehensive reform to the current broken system.
“Our evaluation of the administration’s plan is based upon its ability to solve three fundamental problems with our financial regulatory system: ineffective regulation, regulators that are not well coordinated, and regulatory gaps that missed significant problems that occurred in our markets,” said David Hirschmann, president and CEO of the Chamber’s Center for Capital Markets. “While the Administration has made several positive recommendations, we’re concerned that overall, the proposal simply adds to the layering of the system without addressing the underlying and fundamental problems. We can’t simply insert new regulatory agencies and hope that we’ve covered our bases.”

Eric of DC 12:30PM June 18, 2009

Obama, mind your business. Take care of what's more important--
unemployment, all the money you are handing out like a drunken sailor, taxes--thought you weren't going to tax us?????? The banks are perfectly capable of making the decision whether we should have calculators on-line or not. My opinion-- people won't even use them-let the bank decide----not you----keep your nose out of the banking business----the banks have been here for a long time---laws protecting us "yes" but the rest ie. calculators that is their territory.

joan sica of NJ 11:45AM June 18, 2009