The Dodd-Frank Act on financial regulation has led the government to unfairly punish major banks, according to former Wall Street Journal columnist George Melloan.
"Banks have always had problems and the usual element of corporate misbehavior," he writes in the paper. "But by historical measure, the government's current assault on financial institutions is not normal."
Melloan cites data from M&T Bank CEO Robert Wilmers showing that fines, sanctions and legal awards imposed on the six largest U.S. based banks hit $29.3 billion last year. That compares with $13.9 billion in 2011 and only $9 billion in the entire 2000-2010 decade.
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"Have bankers all gone rogue?" No, Melloan says. "Bankers are more likely to exercise extreme discretion in an era when they are being constantly reviled by leftist politicians, writers and placard-carriers in the streets," he writes.
"A far more logical explanation of the mounting fines would be an outbreak of zealotry by the eight principal federal bank regulators."
And there's a reason that action really got going in 2011. "That's when the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 began to kick in, greatly expanding the scope and intensity of bank regulation," Melloan explains.
"Regulatory mania is encouraged by the Obama administration, which struck political gold in 2012 by blaming the nation's economic ills on the rich, Wall Street, moneybags bankers, deal makers like Mitt Romney or almost anyone else who still wears a suit to work."
Meanwhile, a Washington Post editorial takes a sharply different view. It cites a study from law firm Davis Polk showing that as of July 15, regulators had finalized only 158 of 398 rules required by the law.
"The byzantine process favors the banks, who have the motivation and the money to send lawyers and lobbyists into every bureaucratic cranny, doing their best to dilute and delay the impact of Dodd-Frank," Post editors write.
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