Obama Initiative Seeks Financial Overhaul

Jim Kuhnhenn

WASHINGTON -- A new consumer protection agency highlights a financial system overhaul President Barack Obama plans to unveil Wednesday in an effort to avert future economic crises like the one still reaping havoc at home and around the globe.

Obama's sweeping change of business regulation also embraces new powers for the Federal Reserve and new rules that would reach into currently unregulated regions of the financial markets. An 85-page draft details an effort to change a regime that Obama's economic team maintained had become too porous for the innovations and intricacies of today's financial markets.

With Congress already embroiled in health-care legislation, Obama has set an ambitious schedule, pushing lawmakers to adopt a new regulatory regime by year's end. Obama said Tuesday he will put forward "a very strong set of regulatory measures that we think can prevent this kind of crisis from happening again." ...