Paul Volcker Says World in Great Recession

I love to see my verbiage seep into the mainstream - should of trademarked that Great Recession. Now Paul Volcker is using it. I can only assume this leaked out around 3:20 PM yesterday so the market could rally on it. Logic? "Can't get worse than Paul Volcker saying Great Recession".

Via Bloomberg

• Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker said the global economic slump is one of the worst in history. “The U.S., along with the rest of the world, is in the midst of a great recession,” Volcker, head of President Barack Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, said today at a conference in Washington. Volcker served as head of the central bank from 1979 to 1987.
• “Markets remain uncertain, unsteady and dysfunctional despite trillions of dollars of official support for banks and other financial institutions,” Volcker said. (hold on folks, somewhere in this speech must be talk of green shoots. Oh wait, that's the OTHER guy(s); this is the one that speaks the truth and we hide him in shadows)
  
• Volcker said the new regulations needed to prevent another financial crisis would not amount to “a resurrection of Glass- Steagall,” the Great Depression era legislation that separated commercial and investment banking activities. Still, he said the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which removed many banking barriers, might have to be rewritten.
• Volcker said banks should be prohibited from sponsoring hedge funds or equity funds. “The relatively recent participation in capital markets has contributed for some institutions to an unfortunate lack of focus on core banking functions,” he said. (this will never happen because it would effectively end Goldman Sachs - oh wait in case it did occur, they will simply reverse the "bank holding company" status and untether from the Fed's teat at that point and be back to normal)
• He also advocated keeping banks small. “If we could have less concentration and large institutions are not quite so large, it would be a good idea,” he said. (sigh - you never had a chance to have as say in this Administration Paul; do the right thing - take the Paul O'Neil route)
• Volcker, 81, took issue with the idea that some banks should be labeled as too large to be allowed to fail. Government shouldn’t encourage “the view that some institutions should be assured of official support” because they are too important to the financial system, he said.

[Apr 11, 2009: Paul Volcker Assumes Smaller than Expected Role with Obama]
[Mar 6, 2009: Where is Paul Volcker?]