By Phil Mattingly and James Rowley – Bloomberg.com
The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) employee who criticized the company’s culture in a newspaper column bolsters the case for Wall Street restrictions like the Volcker rule, congressional Democrats said.
While the March 14 New York Times (NYT) opinion piece by former executive director Greg Smith drew no requests for hearings or investigations, lawmakers including Senators Carl Levin of Michigan and Jeff Merkley said the article showed why the U.S. needs tighter restrictions on Wall Street practices. The two Democrats authored the Volcker rule’s ban on proprietary trading and conflicts of interest in the Dodd-Frank Act.
Former Goldman Sachs executive director Greg Smith’s New York Times opinion column published March 14 drew no requests for hearings or deeper investigations. Lawmakers including Senators Carl Levin of Michigan and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, the Democrats who authored the Volcker rule’s ban on proprietary trading and conflicts of interest in the Dodd-Frank Act said the piece strengthened the case for restrictions on Wall Street trading.
Congress can’t “legislate the culture but I think the heart of this goes to why we needed the Merkley-Levin amendment,” Merkley, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, said in an interview.
To read more, visit: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-16/goldman-employee-reinforces-need-for-volcker-rule-democrats-say.html
