Rolfe Winkler

Senate panel OKs swap ban for banks (Sullivan/Rampton, Reuters) Now out of the Agriculture committee, which has jurisdiction over derivatives, the legislation goes to the Senate floor likely as part of the broader Dodd financial reform bill. Republicans are still opposed to it, and they do have some decent arguments about the bill leading to future bailouts. In particular, there’s a provision that effectively makes permanent the FDIC’s debt guarantee program. That was the most underrated bailout of the crisis. If made permanent, it would provide an escape hatch allowing regulators to avoid tough resolutions that impose losses on shareholders/creditors. Dodd should dump it.

Goldman taps ex White House counsel (Javers/Allen, Politico) The Washington/Wall Street revolving door keeps spinning…

Goldman already convicted in court of public opinion? (Rasmussen) ht DanHess

Lippman leaves Deutsche Bank (Dash, NYT) Immortalized in Michael Lewis’s recent book, Lippman made a very successful bet against the housing market on behalf of his bank. His move from DB had previously been telegraphed. Worth noting that he was also the center of many synthetic CDO deals. In the wake of SEC/Goldman, one wonders if all DB’s disclosures were in order…

Euro CDS spreads approach record, er, widths (Alphaville)

Financial debate renews scrutiny of bank size (Chan, NYT) Good idea.

A new $900 million Ponzi (Younglai/Margolies, Reuters)

Fabulous Fab to tell Senate panel he did nothing wrong (Woellert, Bloomberg)

Treasury unveils new $100 bill (Treasury.gov) Benjamins get cool new security features.

Bear gets head stuck in milk can, rescued (AP)