Goldman Sachs Alum Gary Cohn Touts Bank Regulation Rollback

Image by Getty Images

By Daniel J. Solomon February 3, 2017

Goldman Sachs alum Gary Cohn, head of President Donald Trump’s National Economic Council, is planning a weakening of financial regulations via executive order.

Executive orders set to be issued on Friday would direct regulatory agencies to review new rules adopted under the Dodd-Frank Act, a sweeping reform of the financial sector that was passed after the Great Recession. The orders would also repeal a Department of Labor rule that requires retirement advisers to operate solely in the best interests of their clients.

“Americans are going to have better choices and Americans are going to have better products because we’re not going to burden the banks with literally hundreds of billions of dollars of regulatory costs every year,” Cohn, the former chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs, told the Wall Street Journal on Friday. “The banks are going to be able to price product more efficiently and more effectively to consumers.”

Cohn left Goldman for the White House last month, cashing in on bonuses and stock options worth hundred of millions of dollars. He’s among three alumni from the iconic Wall Street firm (the others are Treasury nominee Steve Mnuchin and Steve Bannon as chief White House strategist) to be serving in this administration, a sharp departure from a campaign in which the president criticized financial elites.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at solomon@forward.com or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

Daniel J. Solomon is the former Assistant to the Editor/News Writer at the Forward. Originally from Queens, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate, where he wrote his senior thesis on French-Jewish intellectual history. He is excited to have returned to New York after his time in Massachusetts. Daniel’s passions include folk music, cycling, and pointed argument.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO