Can Obama profit from a Wall Street crackdown?
By Michael Grunwald WASHINGTON (Time) — President Obama’s new proposals to crack down on Wall Street — first the new tax on big banks last week, then Thursday’s new restrictions on big banks — signal a somewhat new approach to financial reform. But they also signal a very new approach to politics and governing: more populist, more confrontational, less deferential to Congress, less eager for common ground. His uncharacteristically blunt message to financial giants and their political defenders said it all: “”If these folks want a fight, it’s a fight I’m ready to have.”” Obama outlined his plan for $117 billion worth of bank taxes to recoup the costs of bailouts even before Scott Brown’s Massachusetts victory gave Republicans the 41st vote they need to filibuster the Senate. The newest proposals — further limits on the size and risk profiles of financial firms, plus bans on commercial banks playing the markets with their own cash or owning hedge funds or private-equity funds — had also
