The Circus of the Bankers.

• Author: Hightower, Jim
• Position: Vox Populist - Proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency to regulate Wall Street - Column

Who doesn't love a parade? And here comes a big one! You can feel the beat of the drums, hear the trumpeting of elephants and melodious call of the calliope--all of which announce that, yes indeedy, the circus is back in town.

But, wait, why aren't the people happy about the arrival of the Big Show? There is no cheering because this is the Circus of the Bankers, arriving not in our town to entertain us, but in their town (Washington, D.C.) to game us.

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Look! There go Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and the other high-hat drum majors of Wall Street, strutting out front. Then come wave after wave of splendiferous bank lobbyists marching on the Capitol--they include whip-cracking lion tamers, legislative jugglers, and political contortionists. And going right along with the antics of this troupe of financial performers is that bumbling bunch of clowns from the Federal Reserve and other bank regulatory agencies.

This fiendish circus has come together to kill the most important part of Barack Obama's proposal to regulate the excesses of Wall Street: a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency. For the first time ever, consumers (i.e., you and me) would have our own independent seat at the table of federal financial policy. The anti-consumer gouging by multibillion dollar banking behemoths--including such common nastiness as hidden credit card fees, exploding interest rates on home loans, and exorbitant charges for payday loans--would at last be subject to new rules set by, and enforced by, regulators who have only one mission: to protect ordinary folks from banking sharks.

The prospect of their customers getting a say in the way that America's financial system works has driven bankers bonkers. "It is outrageous," they bellow, "to interfere with our innovative financial products and restrict our ability to generate free-market profits."

Free market? Aren't these the very same laissez-fairyland hucksters who have free-marketed our economy right into a deep ditch with "innovative" financial flimflams that even they didn't understand?

And aren't they the exact same failed bank bosses that we regular taxpayers are presently being forced to bail out with...