Dealers Seek U.S. Treasury’s Help in Regaining Grip on Debt

The Masters of the Universe immortalized by Tom Wolfe in his 1987 novel “The Bonfire of the Vanities” are feeling like mere mortals.

The Wall Street banks known as primary dealers because they get to trade with the Federal Reserve and raise the money that the U.S. government needs to operate are concerned they are being marginalized because of advances in technology. So worried are they that the group wants the Treasury Department to curb the increasingly popular practice by investors of buying bonds directly from the government without their involvement.