President Obama Eyes Tighter Controls Over Banks and Wall Street

President Barack Obama is proposing the most ambitious revision of the rules and regulations governing the financial industry since the Great Depression.
   
The goal is to prevent a recurrence of a major economic crisis by improving the government’s ability to detect and manage systemic risk.
   
The regulatory changes could result in a major realignment of power and authority among government agencies.
   
Among the issues the administration plans to address are the emergence of large, lightly regulated markets, such as hedge funds; large financial institutions without enough capital backing them
up; the lack of an all-seeing federal entity and unwitting or reckless credit and borrowing decisions at the heart of the crisis.
   
The proposals already are the source of a spirited debate in Congress over whether Obama’s measures will prove too timid or place too heavy a hand on the levers of capitalism.