“The record shows the Federal Reserve was never ahead of a crisis. The SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] was given pages, 20 pages, explaining what [indicted financier Bernard] Madoff was doing, and they could not figure it out. To give them more power to regulate is a nonstarter,” he said.
Meltzer said the proper course of action is to eliminate taxpayer relief for financial institutions that have come to be called “too big to fail.” “If we don’t get rid of ‘too big to fail,’ we’ll sooner or later have another crisis just as bad as this because ‘too big to fail’ encourages banks to believe that they make the profits and the taxpayers take the losses.”
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For the third time in three years, the new richest man in the world. In the person of Carlos Slim Helu a business tycoon from Mexico. He takes No. 1 spot on Forbes World's Billionaires list as a record 164 10-figure titans return to the ranking amid the global economic recovery.Riding surging prices of his various telecom holdings, including giant mobile outfit America Movil ( AMX - news - people ), Mexican tycoon Carlo Slim Helu has beaten out Americans Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to become the wealthiest person on earth and nab the top spot on the 2010 Forbes list of the World's Billionaires. Slim's fortune has swelled to an estimated $53.5 billion, up $18.5 billion in 12 months. Shares of America Movil, of which Slim owns a $23 billion stake, were up 35% in a year. read more
