Ten years after the U.S. was thrown into one of the worst financial crises in history, Americans are still clamoring for stricter regulations on Wall Street firms, according to a new poll by consumer advocacy group Better Markets. About two-thirds of registered voters indicate they’d more likely vote for a candidate who supports regulating Wall Street and big banks when they talk about the economy.
It’s a timely finding given JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s recent comment related to a possible presidential run. (He has since confirmed that he does not plan to run.) In a statement, Dennis Kelleher, president and CEO of Better Markets, said such a run would be “an insult to the tens of millions of Americans still suffering from the economic devastation of the 2008 crash.”
“That any Wall Street executive would even muse about throwing his hat into the Presidential ring the very week that 10 years ago the nation was brought to the brink of financial ruin because of the dangerous, high-risk and socially useless activities of Wall Street’s biggest banks shows just how out of touch Wall Street is with the American people,” Kelleher said.
In a recent opinion piece in The Hill, Kelleher made the case for more financial protection rules and voiced his opposition to recent rollbacks by the Trump administration.
Better Markets polled 1,700 voters across parties and found that nearly six in 10 want to either restore regulations put in place after 2008 or place additional regulations on banks. Nearly seven in 10 believe that weakening regulations on banks that received bailouts is a “great example” of Washington corruption. This view is shared by 75 percent of Democrats, 72 percent of Independents and 60 percent of Republicans.
