Bloomberg View: Paul Ryan and Paul Volcker
This article is for subscribers only.
On May 4, U.S. Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin told his constituents: “If you’re a bank and you want to operate like some nonbank entity like a hedge fund, then don’t be a bank. Don’t let banks use their customers’ money to do anything other than traditional banking.”
Although he didn’t say so, Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman, was endorsing the Volcker rule in the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. Inspired by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, the rule is supposed to stop federally insured banks from making speculative bets for their own profit—leaving taxpayers to bail them out when things go wrong.