Sunday, June 19, 2011

The Regulator Down the Hall: Fed and Comptroller of Currency Bolster the Ranks of Staffers 'Embedded' at Nation's Biggest Banks

The Wall Street Journal reports:
Memo to employees at big Wall Street banks and securities firms: Be careful what you say on the elevator. You might be surrounded by regulators.

As part of a push to prevent another financial crisis, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency are increasing the number of examiners who go to work every day at the companies they regulate.

Much like reporters assigned to a military unit during war, these regulatory "embeds" get unprecedented access to financial firms such as Bank of America Corp., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley. They file through the same security turnstiles, eat lunch at the company cafeteria and press top executives for answers to questions about mortgage-documentation procedures and exposure to European debt and municipal bonds.

Isn't good to know that Big Brother who created the economic meltdown in 2008 is going to now and try and run banks?:
The No. 1 embed at each firm is expected to meet with the CEO at least once a month. Michael Brosnan, an OCC official overseeing supervision of large U.S. banks, says the agency is "increasingly involved in governance and oversight" of the 15 largest banks.
The government wants free office space at a private sector company:
The companies usually decide how to shoehorn all the regulators into the building and provide rent-free office space.
Don't laugh the Obama regime will probably want to run other industries this same way.