Volcker the Man Blasts Volcker the Rule in Letter to Fed Chair

The recent revision of Volcker Rule limits on banks’ ability to speculate with their own capital has cost regulators a meaningful supporter: Paul Volcker.

The former Federal Reserve chairman, who championed the restrictions while serving as an adviser to President Barack Obama after the 2008 financial crisis, said regulators have used “simplification” as an excuse to weaken the rule’s core concepts. Agency chiefs were pushed to make the changes by “well-compensated industry lobbyists,” he wrote to current Fed chief Jerome Powell in an Aug. 20 letter, a copy of which was obtained by Bloomberg News.

Paul Volcker

Photographer: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

“The new rule ...