According to a recent Bloomberg National Poll, 60% of Americans believe that Wall Street has not done enough to self-regulate, and 37% believe the government has not done enough to regulate the financial industry.
President Obama continues to make the creation of a new consumer protection agency a priority as part of what would be the biggest overhaul of the system policing Wall Street since the 1930s. “By creating a new consumer agency, we will finally set and enforce clear rules of the road across the financial marketplace,” Obama said in a March 22 statement. “I will continue to fight to strengthen the bill and against attempts to undermine the independence of this agency.” However, almost 70% support using current bank regulators for consumer protection and are leery of creating a new government agency.
Fifty-six percent of those polled say they would support government action to limit compensation of those who helped cause the financial crisis, or to ban those people from working in the banking industry.
The poll of 1,002 U.S. adults was conducted March 19-22 by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines, Iowa. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.