From Ring of Fire: Papantonio: Are Conservatives Ready To Break Up The Banks?:

For years, Progressives have been fighting to break up the big banks that crashed our economy. And now, they've gotten an unlikely ally in that fight -- The Tea Party. Apparently there are some members in the GOP who actually believe that the too big to fail banks need to be broken apart -- but not for the same reason progressives believe. Mike Papantonio discusses the evolving attitudes of the Tea Party with investigative journalist David Dayen.

Here's more from DDay's column at The American Prospect: Banks Are Too Big to Fail Say ... Conservatives?:

Intellectuals on the right are coming around to the idea that our biggest financial institutions could use a little regulation.

Members of the Federal Reserve don’t usually make the rounds at partisan gatherings. But amid the tri-cornered hats and “#StandWithRand” buttons of last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)—the largest annual gathering of conservatives in the country—was Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank. In a Saturday morning speech, Fisher quoted Revolutionary War hero Patrick Henry, who once said that while “Different men often see the same subject in different lights,” such quibbling had to be set aside in a time of “awful moment to this country.”

Fisher described the current time as an era of economic injustice in which the nation’s largest banks threaten our financial stability and act with immunity. He said that the Dodd-Frank financial reform law did not go nearly far enough to fix the problem, and that mega-banks still profited from being “Too Big to Fail.” His solutions included a proposal to limit the total assets held by the biggest financial institutions, keeping them at a size that would make them “small enough to save.” And he called on citizens of all political stripes to join him in this cause. “The American people will be grateful to whoever liberates them from a recurrence of taxpayer bailouts,” Fisher concluded. It was an indication of just how bipartisan the support for breaking up the big banks has become.

It may be surprising that conservatives—whose party just ran a private-equity tycoon for president—would be clamoring for Wall Street banks to be cut down to size. But over the last few years, conservative intellectuals—from economists and central bankers to think-tankers and high-profile pundits—have come to the conclusion that the largest institutions remain Too Big to Fail and that, in ways big and small, receive unfair financial advantages over their smaller rivals. Read on...

"A crucial change in the way financial derivatives are packaged and sold on Wall Street is enabling traders to bypass new regulations aimed at limiting reckless speculation, enhancing the prospect of another derivatives crisis, warn some market participants."

The Dodd-Frank financial reform law came into effect in 2010 in response to the financial crisis- it required safeguards for investors to cover losses on their derivatives trades. But what if investors found another, risky, way around that? That's what's happening now. Is it time to start the financial Armageddon clock? Cenk Uygur breaks it down.

Just in case any of the 11.5 million struggling homeowners out there are waiting to hear what Mitt Romney's plans are to turn around the housing market, and help those with underwater mortgages, his policy director Lanhee Chen wants you to know up front that there will be no targeted relief for you people.

Via:

Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, doesn’t intend to offer targeted relief for the 11.5 million American homeowners who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth, Chen said, suggesting that such actions are temporary fixes insufficient to stabilize the housing market.

“Governor Romney has indicated that there are some steps we ought to take to ensure that we’re growing our economy,” Chen said. “But on the housing market specifically, I do think we have to resist the temptation for short-term approaches.”

So as much as Governor One Percent would like to help 11.5 million Americans, he just can't allow himself to be tempted, because what's really important? The banks!

Romney, a former private-equity executive who founded the Boston-based firm Bain Capital LLC, wants to replace the Dodd- Frank financial regulation law enacted in 2010 with more limited and “reasonable” rules, including governing derivatives and “some kind of consumer protections,” Chen said.

“The mistake here is to say that somehow because we repealed Dodd-Frank and we get rid of the really burdensome set of regulations that Dodd-Frank put in place, that somehow we’re going back to a dog-eat-dog kind of situation where there’s absolutely no regulation,” Chen said.

Still, he said the so-called Volcker rule to ban proprietary trading by banks “has a lot of problems,” and would be “one of the problematic elements that, quite frankly, Governor Romney would seek to replace.”

Emphasis mine.

Oh, and don't even bother to ask about what Romney has in store for taxes, because he's not going to tell you anything more than he intends to lower taxes by an average of $231,971 for the top 1 percent of taxpayers. Are you going to lose any of your current deductions, or face an increase in your taxes? He's just too busy and important to be troubled with filling you in on the trivial little details.

If you're considering voting for Mitt Romney for POTUS, you'll just have to trust that he will always look out for what's best for the top one percent of the population.

Too bad about your homes.

[Tip o' the hat to Nicole.]