EP 758 America’s Banking System More Fragile Than We Know

To those of us who stopped thinking about the inherent risks in our banking system after the meltdown of 2007-2009, exemplified by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and assumed that Dodd-Frank legislation had corrected all of our problems, it might be time to think again.  Except for extraordinary government interventions over a weekend in 2023, two ‘tech’ banks were on verge of collapse.  That action forestalled a disaster that could have spread throughout the banking industry.  Had it, there was no way that the government could have provided a sufficient backstop for the entire sector.  In truth, the new regulations have not made the financial system resilient.  Much has been papered over by flawed accounting and Federal Reserve support.  Bank lobbies make false and misleading arguments about so-called “capital requirements” which require banks to rely relatively more on their own(equity)funding and less on borrowing.  Is this all a house of cards?  Anat Admati, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, is our guest today and will explain what’s happening in clear detail.  She, along with Martin Hellwig, have just written the new and expanded edition of “The Bankers’ New Clothes: What’s Wrong with Banking and What to Do About It.”

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