[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 12036-12037]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         BANK HOLDING COMPANIES

  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, most of my colleagues might look at these 
pictures and think they depict facilities owned by ExxonMobil or BP, 
but this is, amazingly enough, a picture of Morgan Stanley. Morgan 
Stanley, to most Americans and most people in this Chamber, if they 
know of it, is a bank. Morgan Stanley used to be an investment bank and 
now it is just considered a bank. Let me explain.
  Morgan Stanley owns a company called TransMontaigne, a petroleum and 
chemical transportation and storage company, and Heidmar Inc., which 
reportedly manages more than 100 oil tankers--tankers that look like 
this.
  Today I held a banking subcommittee hearing, which the Presiding 
Officer attended, as did Senator Merkley and Senator Toomey, to examine 
how the line between banks and commercial enterprises is blurring. 
Increasingly, these large institutions combine banks and trading firms 
and energy suppliers and oil refiners and warehouses, as well as 
shipping firms and oil tankers and mining companies.
  Federally insured bank holding companies, once in the business of 
providing checking and savings accounts to workers or loans to small 
businesses, are now also in the business of owning physical 
commodities, including aluminum, oil, and electricity. Witnesses 
testified at the subcommittee hearing that these risky Wall Street 
practices are artificially inflating prices for manufacturers and 
consumers. Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs take 
their cut when we fill up our tanks, take their cut when we buy a Coke 
or buy a beer in an aluminum can. They take their cut increasingly in 
the copper market, a metal that is in all kinds of industrial products.
  A recent article in the New York Times said:

       The maneuvering in markets for oil, wheat, cotton, coffee 
     and more have brought billions in profits to investment banks 
     like Goldman, JPMorgan Chase Morgan Stanley, while forcing 
     customers to pay more every time they fill up a gas tank, 
     flick on a light switch, open a beer or buy a cell phone.

  For years, our Nation separated banking from traditional commerce. 
But about 13, 14 years ago, after years of eroding that protection, 
Congress finally tore down what was left of that wall. Beyond just 
combining commercial banking with insurance and investment banking, 
banks are now allowed to trade in commodities and to engage in a 
variety of nonfinancial activities. Four years later, after that 1999 
repeal, the Federal Reserve enabled the first financial holding company 
to trade in physical commodities.
  The justification for this is a familiar one: Other companies were 
doing it, they told us, and banks were at a competitive disadvantage. 
Over the next 6 years, the rules unraveled, becoming looser and looser, 
until the loopholes were big enough for these six megabanks--now $600 
billion in assets, up to $2.3 trillion in assets--the loopholes are big 
enough for these six megabanks to jump through.
  The expansion of our financial system in traditional areas of 
commerce--from crude oil to natural gas to mining and shipping--hasn't 
happened in a vacuum. It has been accompanied by a host of 
anticompetitive activities. These activities threaten consumers. They 
threaten American businesses that rely upon efficient markets and 
arm's-length transactions. They especially threaten American 
manufacturing when they buy and sell and manage and transport and store 
metals.
  From speculation in the oil and gas markets to inflated prices for 
aluminum to energy manipulation--we know the role of banks has 
expanded. Banks have expanded far beyond their traditional roles.
  There has been little public awareness of or debate about the massive 
expansion of our largest financial institutions into new areas of the 
economy. That is, in part, because regulators have been less than 
transparent about basic facts. We can't get the information from the 
Federal Reserve. Whether a person is a citizen or a reporter or a 
Senator sitting on the Banking Committee, we can't get from the Federal 
Reserve the information we need to know about the governance and these 
rules about commodity trading by the banks. It is also because these 
institutions are so complex and so dense and so opaque and so 
impossible for people to understand that we simply can't figure out 
what we need to figure out.
  The six largest U.S. bank holding companies have 14,000 subsidiaries. 
The six largest U.S. bank holding companies have 14,000 subsidiaries. 
Fewer than 20 of those 14,000 are the end of our traditional banks.
  There are three important issues here that concern me--that Morgan 
Stanley can own refineries and can own the ships. Three important 
issues concern me, whether it is Morgan Stanley, whether it is Goldman 
Sachs, or whether it is JPMorgan Chase, for aluminum, copper, 
electricity, or oil.

[[Page 12037]]

  The lessons of this hearing were three. No. 1, these institutions can 
control physical goods and financial contracts based upon those goods, 
meaning they know more about the trading of these goods because they 
store the aluminum in two dozen warehouses in Detroit or because they 
are moving the oil in these tankers. They know more about transactions, 
they know more about price, they know more about movement of goods, so 
that means they can trade on inside information and it gives them an 
advantage in proprietary trading. It means they can manipulate markets.
  No. 2, these institutions--these banks that own the oil tankers and 
own the refineries--have access to cheap funding--cheaper funding from 
the Federal Reserve--that means us, as taxpayers--that they can use to 
finance their commodities activities. I will say that again. Because 
they can go to the window, they can get cheaper financing. These banks 
can get cheaper financing.
  They say there is a wall between their traditional bank activities 
and what they are doing while owning these commodities and buying and 
selling and transporting and storing and gaming the markets, but they 
can get money cheaper from taxpayers. They can borrow money at a less 
expensive rate than anybody else, they and their competitors who also 
might own oil tankers or refineries.
  No. 3, they are exposing themselves and us--the economy--to risks 
that can threaten our financial system. Just imagine the economic, the 
environmental, and the reputational impact to a megabank of an Exxon 
Valdez or a BP oilspill. Think of the economic impact that could have 
on the stability of the bank and the success of the bank and, 
therefore, the stability of the whole financial system.
  Today was the first of what I expect to be several hearings on this 
issue. Taxpayers have a right to know what is happening. American 
citizens have a say in our financial system because taxpayers are the 
ones who will be asked to rescue these megabanks yet again if the 
unthinkable--which almost inevitably happens in this world over time--
if the unthinkable happens.

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