Financial System

The Bush Administration is preparing to recommend the most far-reaching overhaul of the nation's financial system since the Great Depression, a top-to-bottom revamping that could eventually change the way nearly everybody in the nation handles their money, the Washington Post reported today. Proposals now being drafted by the Treasury Department would rewrite the laws that have governed U.S. banks, savings and loans, brokerage houses and insurance companies for half a century.

WASHINGTON - President Obama on Thursday will nominate his chief of staff, Jacob J. Lew, a fiscal policy expert with deep Washington roots, as his new Treasury secretary to help lead the administration through budget battles ahead. Lew, 57, would replace Timothy F. Geithner, who has been planning to leave the administration this month, according to a White House official. The official announcement is expected to come at 10:30 a.m. Pacific time. “Throughout his career, Jack Lew has proven a successful and effective advocate for middle-class families who can build bipartisan consensus to implement proven economic policies,” the White House said.

The Clinton administration on Tuesday proposed modest changes in the international financial system designed to help prevent the kind of economic turmoil that has enveloped several Asian countries in recent months. The package, outlined in a speech by Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin, includes measures aimed at forcing big international banks and other investors to assume greater losses when they have made shaky loans--a politically charged issue in Congress.

Few investors expect this week's readings on the housing market and personal spending to be especially strong. But many are hoping the data show at least a few clues that an economic rebound is on the horizon. More than six months have passed since the Federal Reserve started lowering interest rates; usually, this is the point when there's evidence that a rate cut is having a salutary effect on the broader economy. The stock market has begun to act as if it believes the Fed's rate and lending actions are helping to revive the limping financial system, but investors aren't completely confident yet. Seesaw trading led to big gains in stocks last week, but the volatility indicated that investors are still on edge.

LOS CABOS, Mexico - President Obama back-slapped and smiled through another gathering of world leaders this week, but left a meeting of G-20 nations Tuesday in much the same place he was in when he arrived: waiting for Europe to prevent disaster. The Eurozone's debt crisis continues to present a growing menace to the American economy. And that puts Obama in a position all presidents hope to avoid, especially in an election year: His political fortunes could be at the mercy of events out of his control.

Revolutionary changes are coming at us at supersonic speed, bringing new challenges that are existential and global. Yet our political system seems incapable of adapting to, or even fully acknowledging, those changes. Instead, the system is constricted by ideas and attitudes better suited to the 19th century. In the current issue of Vanity Fair, Todd Purdum equates the current era with the decades before and after 1500 during which the New World was discovered and explored, trade became a global enterprise, the Reformation broke the religious monopoly of the Roman Catholic Church, the feudal system gave way to nation states and movable type and the printing press created the first form of mass communication.

In the name of avoiding another catastrophic financial crisis, Congress and the Obama administration have crafted a new law thousands of pages in length and dealing with every nook and cranny of the banking business. But the financial-system meltdown had one root cause, and by now we all know what it was: Too many people, businesses and governments took on too much debt over nearly 30 years. Resolution of that debt remains the slow-motion crisis that threatens the health of the financial system and the economy.

We differ strongly with Mark Weisbrot's characterization of Argentina's latest loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund as "helping Argentina dig itself into a deeper hole" (" 'Helpers' Such as IMF Make a Junkie of Argentina," Commentary, Sept. 5). It is his prescription of default and devaluation that would see Argentina digging itself deeper. Yes, there are risks in the new program, but Argentina's recipe for reform is the right one, well deserving of strong international support.

WASHINGTON -- Citing emerging financial sector stability, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Thursday that a number of government rescue efforts in place since the Wall Street crisis are no longer needed and that banks will repay $50 billion in rescue funds over the next 18 months. Geithner, testifying before a congressional watchdog panel, said the nation still has a ways to go before "true recovery takes hold." But he said improved conditions in the banking industry have prompted Treasury to begin winding down emergency support programs.

The stage was set Friday for America's rattled financial system to face a possibility that Washington has so far sought to avoid: that one of the nation's big investment houses would collapse without government aid to soften the blow. Attempting to draw a line less than a week after the massive federal bailout of mortgage titans Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke have told executives and potential purchasers of Lehman Bros.