President Barack Obama sternly warned Wall Street Monday against returning to the sort of reckless and unchecked behavior that threatened the nation with a second Great Depression. His agenda includes new rules to protect consumers, higher capital adequacy requirements in the G-20, and increased transparency for complex financial instruments like mortgage-backed securities. "But a key component of the Obama plan - creating an agency to oversee marketing financial products to consumers - faces a tough road to become a law. Industry lobbying against it and other proposed financial rules has been fierce and the president's fellow Democrats have been slow to take up the cause."
