Fat cat bankers balk at Obama's demands for common sense banking oversight

Under the plan conceived by Treasury, banking supervision would be significantly consolidated.

But Bair, whose populist tone has won allies in Congress, in her prepared remarks for the banking committee hearing, said: "Prudent risk management argues strongly against putting all your regulatory and supervisory eggs in one basket."

SHOOT: Such bullshit. One regulator sends out one clear message from one authority. Bair is talking about the risk management of an investment, not oversight. Classic mixing up of the issue. Which is strong, centralised oversight.

clipped from www.reuters.com The officials' defiance, in prepared congressional testimony obtained by Reuters, came despite a warning given to them on Friday by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. In private remarks punctuated with expletives, Geithner urged the regulators to end their turf battles and show support for President Barack Obama's plan, according to a person familiar with the situation on Monday. But that seemed to have little impact on John Bowman, acting director of the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), an agency slated for closure under the Obama plan. "We do not see merit or wisdom in consolidating federal supervision of national and state banking charters into a single regulator," FDIC chairman Sheila Bair said in her remarks ahead of the hearing on regulatory reform. Citing people familiar with the meeting, the newspaper also said Geithner used obscenities and took an aggressive stance in his dressing down of the regulators.