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Thursday, March 10, 2011

Wells Fargo CEO: Dodd-Frank Bill Hurts Consumers

I wonder if anyone in the Obama administration cares that the one of the top CEOs in the entire banking industry thinks that Dodd-Frank is a disaster that will hurt consumers (as does Ben Bernanke, at least in the fact that consumers will have to pay more). Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf:

"We have government price controls [in banking] for the first time," Stumpf said. "As I talk to senators, I ask them, 'What is the next product you want to manage and control?' ... Should we regulate the cost of computers?"

..."If you set someone up on Hennepin and 7th, and had them put up a sign and say, 'Tell me what caused the downturn of 2008,' they'd be standing there for five more winters before someone said, 'It's those darned debit fees,'" Stump said Tuesday. "But they would say within three seconds that housing has something to do with it. Dodd-Frank has a big section in there about debit fees and not a word about housing. So politics is alive and well in Washington."

Ouch.