MSNBC's Steph Ruhle hits Republicans for being both anti-regulation and in favor of bank bailouts
Host Stephanie Ruhle, who previously anchored Bloomberg News shows and has a degree in business, was brought onto an MSNBC panel tonight to discuss the recent bank failures.
She explained that the average American sees the news and wants to put their money into the big banks because it seems safer.
Panelist Dean Baker, Center for Economic Policy Research co-founder and senior economist, explained that the 2008 crisis was very different and that there was a huge amount of money and mortgage-backed securities that were lost when the housing bubble burst.
"In this case, you had banks, the Silicon Valley Bank in particular, that exercise just horrible judgment," he explained. "Just kind of mind-boggling these were professionals, they were the CEO of Silicon Valley Bank getting $9.9 million last year. What were you doing? And, you know, at one point, I can't emphasize enough, it was what Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) made her editorial comment, you mentioned. They weakened regulation in a way that exactly allowed this to happen. Oftentimes ambiguous, 'Did this regulation?' — no, here it's not ambiguous."
He went on to blame Republicans — and specifically the weakening of regulations by Donald Trump. Ruhle disagreed it was all the fault of Republicans, however. She said the banking industry was also culpable.
"There is an argument to be made, and it's around something called regulatory capture, right?" she explained. "When there is a huge amount of regulation in an industry, you know who can afford that regulation big, big banks, right? You can say, you need 1000 more compliance officers, and JP Morgan can say, check it, I can do that in a millisecond. A small regional bank cannot do that. So, there's an argument to be made, you have to be mindful of the regulation that you put on big banks and small banks. But in this case, they deregulated in a way that had opened the door for risky behavior that should have not taken place."
Host Ayman Mohyeldin said it's that kind of behavior regulations are needed in the first place. Ruhle compared it to parenting and rules for children.
"I don't know why we suddenly think this whole idea 'Oh, don't tread on me. Let these banks regulate themselves,'" she said. "Because you've got all of these people that are anti-regulation, don't tread on me, small government, and then, as soon as the you-know-what hits the fan, those are the first people in line saying, Joe Biden, we need a bailout. So the argument is either you are against regulation, and you want, you know, survival of the fittest. Or you are pro-regulation and you want these protections. But it's pretty rich not to demand both."
See the full clip below or at the link here.
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