Rolling back fairly reasonable responses to the financial system breakdowns of 2008, Collins told KCRW Radio, “is going to seed the next economic meltdown.”
If Trump’s goal is to address people left out of economy, “I really see an agenda that’s not going to serve the wider public interest,” Collins said of Trump’s executive order rolling back Wall Street regulations.
And as for his promise to drain the swap, Collins said, “It’s a long shot.”
“Part of what we are trying to remember is that in 2008 we had this economic meltdown, we tried to respond with a set of public policies,” Collins said. “It may have overreached in a few places,” Collins said – like the regulatory burden put on community banks – but that doesn’t justify the roll back of “key consumer protections such as the weakening, or even gutting, of the consumer protection bureau – which is the only agency that focuses on consumers and protecting consumers.”
“I see a desire from the current regime to throw it all out, to unleash it all,” Collins said.
Collins further took aim at “this idea that there’s a hoarding of capital. That there’s money not being put in the system.”
“We’re in a golden age of finance right now,” Collins said. “Commercial and financial lending is gushing. Mortgage lending is at pre-2008 levels.”
Areas where there isn’t a similar financial output, Collins said, like in commercial real estate, is for a good reason. There’s a concerning amount of fraud and speculation in that sector, he said.
Instead of focusing on unleashing Wall Street’s economic potential, we should be protecting the real economy of goods and services, Collins said, “We have to protect local economies and local banks and credit institutions from the worst predatory aspects of Wall Street,” or else expect a rapid movement towards another period of economic instability.