The Economist Frames the Argument Against Excessive Bank Regulation (somewhat unintentionally)
April 1, 2016
Authored by: Jonathan Hightower
On March 26, 2016, The Economist published an article entitled “The Problem with Profits.” That article discussed the high profitability of U.S. firms and why that seemingly positive fact is actually harmful to the overall economy, mainly because those profits are not being distributed for spending by shareholders or reinvested in business growth. As a result, the economy shrinks as resources flow to these firms and remain on their balance sheets. The focus of the article was a call for increased competition, but we believe we should focus on other conclusions.
While the article gives a tip of the cap to the impact of regulation generally and bank regulation specifically, banks represent the poster child for the negative impacts of limiting the ability of domestic firms to reinvest, an impact that is not directly reflected on balance sheets or income statements.
Since the onset of “new and improved” regulation stemming from Dodd-Frank and other regulatory reforms, we are seeing are clients use their resources to
- hold capital on their balance sheets, in some cases to protect against the anticipated negative impacts of an imaginary doomsday scenario;
- retain “high quality liquid assets;”
- invest in extraordinary compliance expertise and management systems; and
- fill buckets left empty from reduced interchange fees, the impact of stress testing, and higher costs to originate mortgage loans, among other things.
As an industry, we frequently point to decreased lending to small businesses and increased consolidation as the evils of increased regulation. In our view, however, the dampening of reinvestment initiatives is much more significant for the industry and for the economy in general.