banks can place huge, risky bets that are subsidized by taxpayers and that could pose a conflict of interest. it s for these reasons i m proposing a simple and common sense reform, which we re calling the volcker rule. and the process to end bank practices and prevent another 2008 financial crisis is not swift. as you haired there, the president was laying out a rule, and it took four years. but now we re seeing those words put into action. with the approval today of, yes, the volcker rule. the big banks fought implementation of this rule since it was signed into law as part of the dodd/frank banking reforms of 2010. today the volcker rule, named after the former fed chair who did initially propose it, mandates that banks cannot use deposits insured by you, the rest of us, to make big, potentially disastrous market bets for them to make money. president obama issued a st. paul this afternoon, saying in part, our financial system will be safer, and the american people more secure beca
protection in the law. joining us now is jared bernstein, senior fellow at the center for budget and policy priorities. and robert reich, an economics professor at ucla berkeley. labor secretary under president clinton, as you know. and his new film, inequality for all, about america s widening income gap is currently in theatres. welcome to both of you. thank you. let me start with you, jared, the consumer financial protection bureau, some of the recent prosecutions we have seen of banks, including jpmorgan and other civil investigations. are we seeing something of a shift in the way the obama administration is able to combine basically prosecution and regulation to rein in some bank practices? yes. we re seeing something of a shift. the volcker rule, as articulated today, came out of a set of negotiations by a bunch of regulators. actually looks pretty good. and i m not the only one to say that. believe me, i look at these things with a jaundiced eye. others oh worried it would
the bank practices here? there s some reason to suspect that the t.a.r.p. bailout and the hand packed or whatever it is homeowner the act that provides megyn: home affordable modification program. right, there is some reason to suspect that really, in the final analysis, this was a bill that was designed more for the benefit of the banks than it was for the homeowners. i d like to see something i think all of us would like to see something done for homeowners who really have a chance of working this out. but we have to recognize that there are people out there with home owns right now that really shouldn t have had them in the first place and are never going to be in the position to pay that money back, not on that home. megyn: you can see both sides because you don t want to be heartless, but on the other hand, a deal is a deal a. contract is a deal and people taking on second, third jobs trying to get the contract paid are saying why am i doing this. it s really tough t