Volcker Looms Larger as Support for Bernanke Strengthens Ties

Rich Miller
Bloomberg
February 2, 2010

Paul Volcker is enjoying increased influence with the Federal Reserve as well as the Obama administration, central bank records show.

[efoods]Volcker, who headed the Fed from 1979 to 1987, met current chairman Ben S. Bernanke six times in the year through November, the latest month that the Fed has made its records available. In the prior year, the two men only got together once.

“Volcker has had very strong views on regulation going way back,” said Lyle Gramley, who served as a Fed governor under Volcker and is now a senior economic adviser to New York-based Potomac Research Group. “It would be logical for Bernanke to talk to him about financial reforms” as policy makers wrestled over how to prevent another crisis.

Bernanke in the past year has advocated tighter rules for banks’ capital, leverage and liquidity, moving closer to Volcker’s view that more regulation is necessary to protect the financial system. “We cannot lose sight of the need to reorient our supervisory approach and to strengthen our regulatory and legal framework,” Bernanke said in a speech on Oct. 23.

READ FULL ARTICLE

This article was posted: Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 12:45 pm

---

---

---

---