Certainly makes one think. I would be interested in any relevant articles for this move.

I don't know enough about banking - but it seems as if Volcker is trying to stop speculation by banks (backstopped by the public), that can also lead to waves of inflationwith all this money creation/cheap money that the Fed is creating, whilst Obama is playing the good antibank guy. They blame the crisis on banking speculation, however, the popualtion as peculating as well, all on fed easy moeny. But isn't this speculation the way the banks made enough profits to pay back, which has so pleased Obama. Perhaps that's why he's a year late with this move - it's all been done, and now he can try to close the stable door.

Didn't Volcker do this in teh past - the control of (potential) inflation - via very high interest rates - which would now be impossible, as it would kill off the economy, because there's so much debt?

Still, the Government seems likely to continue paying its way with printed money. And cheap money (with the low rates set by fed/central banks) can still be used to inflate markets, even if not directly by banks. Money is still cheap for some people.

Does that tightening mean big banks won't be able to speculate in the gold and silver markets at all? Don't know because there's no transparency as to who holds the big short positions anyway (although there's a CFTC meeting in March to discuss precious metals).

Some oddities - Obama describes the financial meltdown as a calamity, then says we had to stop it falling off a cliff by bailing out the banks. But does it really matter if a calamity then falls off a cliff? Of course he doesn't mention the public having taken on large amounts of debt - the public couldn't possibly have payed any part. Obama says every dime will be paid back - but I've read that not all payments are listed or traceable anyway - isn't there a legal action on this? He fell in the deep end when elected around the time of the crisis, but it's taken him a year to act on this - that's a year behind - that's well late and perhaps quite cynical.

Every dime back - but there's a big secret tax on every borrower and saver, via the massive gulf between public rates and rates available to the banks. Plus the secret tax of inflation. For example, here in the UK my nephew pays 5% on his student loan post university, yet banks are paying savers almost nothing - so these ex-students (and loads of other people such as pensioners with nest-eggs) are in effect paying off the banks' debts or bringing them additional profits - that has nothing to do with speculation. It appears that differential also exists in the USA for the US banks to profit from, but I didn't hear any of this being mentioned by Obama - the Fed sets these low rates.

IMH assessment.