The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis supports a Senate plan that would force Wall Street megabanks to spin off their derivatives units and raise significantly more capital to cover their bets, becoming the third Fed official outside Washington and New York to support a hotly contested measure that’s turning into a Wall Street versus Main Street issue.
James Bullard, the St. Louis Fed chief, joins Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher and Thomas Hoenig, who heads the Kansas City Fed, as the three Fed officials who publicly support the provision, authored by Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), according to one of his spokesmen. The Obama administration and the Fed’s Washington-based Board of Governors oppose the measure and are working to kill it.
Jun 16 2010