The Keystone XL pipeline is a decision where the president could reach out to the industry and appear to back the development of fossil fuel resources, albeit with strict safety and environmental safeguards. “Elections have consequences, and Eric, I won,” President Barack Obama famously told House Republican Whip Eric Cantor shortly after his first inauguration in January 2009. Four years later, Wall Street as well as the oil and gas industry will return to work today knowing that they heavily backed the losing side and now have very little political capital with the re-elected Obama administration and the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate. Some urgent bridge-building will be required in the coming days if they are to influence financial regulation and energy policy over the next four years. VOTES HAVE CONSEQUENCES President Barak Obama’s re-election ensures the Democrats will retain their 3-2 majorities on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the agencies charged with implementing the controversial derivatives portions of the 2010 Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Senate Democrats and the president will block any attempt to re-write the Dodd-Frank Act, and the continuing Democratic majority in the Senate will leave the president with a relatively free hand to nominate regulators committed to a fairly aggressive interpretation of the landmark financial law. On energy and the environment, the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will remain in the hands of conservation-minded policymakers, who want to tilt the energy market in favour of clean technologies, back strict controls on greenhouse emissions and vehicle efficiency and are somewhat sceptical about drilling for oil and gas. BACKING THE LOSING SIDE In the past 18 months, the financial services and fossil energy industries moved into outright opposition to the Obama administration and the Democratic Party, making little secret of their desire to see a Republican takeover in Washington. Employees of banks such as Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase and Co, as well as many brokerages and derivatives dealers poured millions of dollars into political action committees that supported Romney for president and backed other Republicans in a bid to seize control of the Senate. The American Petroleum Institute (API), which lobbies on behalf of the oil and gas industry, created and funded Vote4Energy to campaign for oil- and gas-friendly policies in battleground states. The organisation was nominally independent, but its positions and advocacy closely mirrored the views of the Romney campaign. In return, Romney’s campaign promised to repeal the hated Dodd-Frank law and ease restrictions on the development of fossil energy. MORE GUERRILLA WARFARE? Wall Street and the fossil energy industry now must decide how to cope with the new reality that the White House and the executive branch will remain under Democratic control for the next four years, while Democrats will control the Senate until the start of 2015. One option is to maintain a strong oppositional stance. The U.S. House of Representatives remains in the hands of a solid Republican majority and can be counted on to block any attempts to pass fresh legislation on energy or financial services that the industries do not like.

A Brief History of U.S. Banking Source: The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency Banking has changed in many ways through the years. Banks today offer a wider range of products and services than ever before, and deliver them faster and more efficiently. But banking's central function remains as it has always been. Banks put a community's surplus funds (deposits and investments) to work by lending to people to buy homes and cars, to start and expand businesses, to put their children through college, and for countless other purposes. Banks are vital to the health of our nation's economy. For tens of millions of Americans, banks are the first choice for saving, borrowing, and investing. The First Banks: 1791 to 1832 In most states of the early federal union, bank organizers needed special permission from the state government to open and operate. For a while, an additional layer of oversight was provided by the Bank of the United States, a central bank founded in 1791 at the initiative of the nation's first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton. Its Congressional charter expired in 1811. A second Bank of the United States was created in 1816 and operated until 1832. In those days, city bankers tended to be extremely cautious about to whom they lent and for how long. To make sure they had enough cash available to meet unexpected demands from depositors, bankers generally made short-term loans only. Thirty to sixty days was the norm. Typically manufacturers and shopkeepers would use these funds to pay their suppliers and workers until they could sell the goods to customers. After that sale they would pay off the bank loan. In less settled parts of the country, lending standards tended to be more liberal. There farmers could frequently obtain bank loans to buy land and equipment and finance the shipment of farm products to market. Because of the unpredictability of weather and market conditions, loan losses tended to be higher too. Many Kinds of Money: 1832 to 1864 When the second Bank of the United States went out of business in 1832, state governments took over the job of supervising banks. This supervision often proved inadequate. In those days banks made loans by issuing their own currency. These bank notes were supposed to be convertible, on demand, to cash—hat is, to gold or silver. It was the job of the bank examiner to visit the bank and certify that it had enough cash on hand to redeem its outstanding currency. Because this was not always done, many bank note holders found themselves stuck with worthless paper. It was sometimes difficult or impossible to detect which notes were sound and which were not, because of their staggering variety. By 1860 more than 10,000 different bank notes circulated throughout the country. Commerce suffered as a result. Counterfeiting was epidemic. Hundreds of banks failed. Throughout the country there was an insistent demand for a uniform national currency acceptable anywhere without risk. In response, Congress passed the National Currency Act in 1863. In 1864, President Lincoln signed a revision of that law, the National Bank Act. These laws established a new system of national banks and a new government agency headed by a Comptroller of the Currency. The Comptroller's job was to organize and supervise the new banking system through regulations and periodic examinations. Creating a National Currency: 1865 to 1914 The new system worked well. National banks bought U.S. government securities, deposited them with the Comptroller, and received national bank notes in return. By being lent to borrowers, the notes gradually entered circulation. On the rare occasion that a national bank failed, the government sold the securities held on deposit and reimbursed the note holders. No owner of a national bank note ever lost his or her money. National bank notes were produced and distributed through an involved process. Once the basic engraving and printing were done (at first by private printers, later by the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing), the notes were entered on the books of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, then returned to the printer where the seal of the Treasury Department was stamped on each. Next, the notes were shipped to the bank whose name appeared on them, where they were signed by two senior bank officers. The notes were then ready for circulation. National bank notes were the mainstay of the nation's money supply until Federal Reserve notes appeared in 1914. National bank notes featured elaborate scenes and portraits drawn from American history. The complexity of their design was intended to foil counterfeiters. Today, collectors prize national bank notes as outstanding examples of the engraver's art. The Banking Crisis: 1929 to 1933