Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat who is arguably Wall Street’s harshest critic on Capitol Hill, has said restoring<br />Glass-Steagall would reduce the risks bank pose to the economy by creating a “wall between commercial and investment banking.”<br />“Despite the progress since 2008, the biggest banks continue to threaten our economy,” Ms. Warren said in a statement.<br />2 executive at Goldman Sachs, Mr. Cohn is not the first administration official to signal Mr. Trump’s support for restoring some version<br />of the New Deal-era Glass-Steagall Act, which forced the separation of deposit taking from trading and investment banking activities.<br />Goldman, said Dennis Kelleher, president and chief executive of Better Markets, a group<br />that advocates more restrictions on Wall Street, “would be king of the financial world where bank holding companies couldn’t compete.”<br />If anything, the proposal to restore Glass-Steagall shows the shifting sands of Wall Street’s position in Washington.<br />In a meeting on Wednesday with senators from both parties, Gary D. Cohn, Mr. Trump’s chief economic adviser, said the administration was considering a proposal<br />that would require separating retail banking from investment banking and trading.<br />Others warned that breaking up large banks could benefit firms like Mr. Cohn’s former employer, Goldman Sachs, whose retail deposit business is relatively recent<br />and small: It would have a greater impact on Goldman rivals like JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup.<br />“Large financial institutions play a role in the American economy other institutions are not able to fill,” said Tim Pawlenty,<br />the chief executive of the Financial Services Roundtable, an industry group, and a former Republican governor of Minnesota.
