The Brave New World

In the UK (Jesse Eisinger):
...major government figures speak openly about requiring substantially higher bank capital. The governor of the Bank of England, the head of the Financial Services Authority (the equivalent of the Securities and Exchange Commission) and even the conservative chancellor of the Exchequer have backed a bigger crackdown on the banking sector. While the international banking rules, called Basel III, settled on 7 percent as the minimum standard for a certain kind of capital, it’s acceptable in Britain to talk about having significantly higher standards. A recent Bank of England paper contemplated capital on the order of 15 to 20 percent.=

In the US (Barry Ritholtz):

• The banks own Congress
• Regulators have long been captured
• 7% capital reserves = 14 to 1 leverage is unacceptable to banks (pre-crisis levels used to be 12 to 1 before waivers were granted)
• The Obama White House, tainted by Robert Rubin pro-bank staffing recommendations, missed their window to really fix what is broken on Wall Street.
• Another major financial crisis is inevitable