http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=adtTQBGu6wV8

-- Americans are leery about creating a new federal agency to make consumer-protection rules for
mortgages and credit cards and would prefer to enhance the
existing powers of banking regulators.

Most people interviewed in the Bloomberg National Poll say they don’t like Wall Street, banks or insurance companies and favor letting the government punish bankers who helped cause the
worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Almost seven out of 10 people surveyed support using current bank regulators for consumer protection, backing positions held by the financial industry and Republicans over
President Barack Obama’s proposal to establish an independent
agency.

The poll’s findings come as the White House and congressional Democrats pivot to focus more election-year attention on an unpopular political target -- banks and Wall
Street -- following this week’s victory on health-care
legislation.

“Let’s not paint all of Wall Street with the same brush, but there are those who really did tremendous harm to our economy,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters. “So now
we will have a bill because we can’t ever let this happen again
to the American people.”

As the country struggles with a 9.7 percent unemployment rate while financial stocks surge, 57 percent of Americans have a mostly unfavorable or very unfavorable view of Wall Street,
versus fewer than one-quarter who have a favorable opinion.
Banks are viewed badly by 54 percent of poll respondents, and 60
percent have a negative opinion of insurance companies.

Disdain for Executives

The poll also shows most Americans don’t like the nation’s top corporate bosses. Almost two-thirds say they have an unfavorable opinion of business executives, a rating that rivals
the public’s disdain for Congress, which was viewed with
disfavor by 67 percent of respondents.

The poll of 1,002 U.S. adults was conducted March 19-22 by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines, Iowa. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Low esteem for financial firms was reflected in resentment of big paychecks on Wall Street.

Fifty-six percent of those polled say they would support government action to limit compensation of those who helped cause the financial crisis, or to ban those people from working
in the banking industry.

“The amount of money that people on Wall Street make seems to be really out of bounds,” said Laure Sinclair, 52, a part- time accountant who lives in Dallas. “But I don’t know that the
government can regulate that because we want to be a capitalist
society.”

Consumer Protection

Obama’s proposal for a stand-alone consumer agency has been a main sticking point in negotiations between Senate Democrats and Republicans on broader legislation to increase oversight of
Wall Street.

The Senate Banking Committee on March 22 approved a bill by Senator Christopher Dodd, the panel’s chairman and a Connecticut Democrat, to set up a consumer-protection bureau at the Federal
Reserve with the authority to write and enforce rules. Obama
continues to make the agency a priority as part of what would be
the biggest overhaul of the system policing Wall Street since
the 1930s.

“By creating a new consumer agency, we will finally set and enforce clear rules of the road across the financial marketplace,” Obama said in a March 22 statement. “I will
continue to fight to strengthen the bill and against attempts to
undermine the independence of this agency.”

Populist Ire

As Democrats and Republicans seek to tap populist ire, the poll shows there may be political advantage in taking on big financial institutions such as Charlotte, North Carolina-based
Bank of America Corp., and New York’s Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

The majority of poll participants -- 56 percent -- say big financial companies are more interested in enriching themselves at the expense of ordinary people, while 40 percent say such
firms play a vital role in enabling the economy to grow.

At the same time, Americans are divided over the scope of government regulation. More than 40 percent of Americans say the government has gone too far in measures to fix the financial
industry; 37 percent say it hasn’t done enough. Almost six out
of 10 people say Wall Street hasn’t gone far enough on its own
to protect against future emergencies.

“Anything the government gets their fingers in, they mess it up,” said poll participant Norman White, 60, a community college electronics instructor who lives in Colfax, Louisiana.
“I don’t have a very high opinion of the government running
anything.”

Views of Fed

The Fed could use some marketing help, the poll shows. More than a quarter of participants don’t have an opinion about the central bank, while 42 percent have a favorable view and 31
percent hold an unfavorable view.

While gloomy about the nation’s economic outlook, most Americans believe there is little chance in the next few years of another financial upheaval like the 2008 crisis that caused a
near collapse of the U.S. banking industry. While 42 percent say
they think such a scenario is at least fairly likely, 57 percent
say it is only somewhat likely or not likely at all.