Will Trump break up the banks?

Wall Street's "dream president" could turn out to be its biggest nightmare

Trump, breaker of banks?
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Wall Street's "dream president" could turn out to be its biggest nightmare, said Michael Corkery and Jessica Silver-Greenberg at The New York Times. President Trump has vowed to roll back financial regulations, much to the delight of big banks. But the president's top advisers "continue to float an idea that would not only hurt the nation's largest banks, it would upend them." In a recent meeting with lawmakers, Gary Cohn, the White House's chief economic adviser, said the administration is open to resurrecting the Glass-Steagall Act. This Depression-era law forced the separation of retail banking from investment banking, splitting the industry into Wall Street trading firms and Main Street banks taking deposits. It stood for decades before being repealed during a wave of deregulation by President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s. Bringing back a version of Glass-Steagall is that Washington rarity, an idea with bipartisan support. Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren has seized on Cohn's comments and reintroduced a bill she sponsored with Republican Sen. John McCain, called the 21st-century Glass-Steagall Act. Suddenly, overhauling Wall Street is "back in vogue."

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