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  3. Barack Obama declared war on Wall Street last night as he unveiled a series of measures aimed at checking the behaviour of banks

Barack Obama declared war on Wall Street last night as he unveiled a series of measures aimed at checking the behaviour of banks

admin2010-11-29  46
问题     Barack Obama declared war on Wall Street last night as he unveiled a series of measures aimed at checking the behaviour of banks. The proposals, regarded as the biggest regulatory crackdown on banks since the 1930s, would limit the size of institutions and bar them from the most cavalier trading practices. Mr Obama hopes that the move will reset his flagging presidency.
    "We should no longer allow banks to stray too far from their central mission of serving their customers," he said. "My resolve to reform the system is only strengthened when I see record profits at some of the very firms claiming that they cannot lend more to small business, cannot keep credit card rates low and cannot refund taxpayers for the bailout. If these folks want a fight, it’s a fight I’m ready to have. Never again will the American taxpayer be held hostage by a bank that is too big to fail."
    Flanked by his economic advisers, he said that Wall Street banks must: halt "proprietary trading", where banks risk huge sums predicting the outcome of future moves in the price of commodities such as oil; operate more cautiously and have more available funds; not become too large by limiting the amount of ordinary banking business they can undertake.
    In Britain, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats pounced on the President’s words, claiming that they had been calling for similar measures for some time. The Treasury said that it would study his moves carefully.
    Mr. Obama’s comments prompted heavy falls in stock markets on both sides of the Atlantic. The FTSE100 fell 85.70 points to 5335.1 — a fall of 1.6 per cent — while on Wall Street share prices fell by more than 2 per cent at one stage.
    Among those with the biggest share price falls on Wall Street were the banks seen as being most wounded by Mr Obama’s proposals. Shares of JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America each fell by more than 6 per cent, while Citigroup shares fell by more than 5 per cent and Goldman Sachs shares by more than 3 per cent.
    George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, hailed Mr. Obama’s intervention as a welcome move. "I have said consistently that we should look at separating retail banking from activities like large-scale proprietary trading — and that this was best done internationally," he said. "Coming on top of growing agreement on a bank levy, it shows that Conservatives are part of an emerging international consensus on these issues."
    Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor, said: "Barack Obama understands that the bonus culture in the banking system has got entirely out of hand and must be curbed. The days of excessive risk-taking on the back of taxpayers’ money must stop now. While Obama’s proposals to prevent the worst elements of proprietary trading are welcome, this is merely a halfway house.
    Analysts said that the proposals, if enacted unilaterally by the US, could damage Wall Street’s standing as a global financial centre. Ralph Fogel, investment strategist at Fogel Neale Partners in New York, said: "This is going to have a tremendous impact on big-name brokerage firms. If they stop prop trading it will not only dry up liquidity in the market but it will change the whole structure of Wall Street."
What are George Osborne’s and Vince Cable’s opinions on Obama’s proposal?
选项 A、Neither liked it.
B、Both favored it.
C、It is not stated in the passage.
D、George Osborne thinks it is welcoming, while Vince Cable does not.
答案B
解析 细节题。题干中的“George Osborne and Vince Cable”是定位关键词，他们对奥巴马政府的提议做出评价时都使用了“welcome”一词，说明他们的态度都是赞成的。
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