by Daniel Costello

Late Monday, the Fed came up with another idea for helping Wall Street find more cash: Wall Street.

For years, buyout shops and private-equity firms have been lobbying to loosen longstanding rules barring them from owning controlling stakes in banks. Yesterday, the Fed...drum roll please....relented.

As of today, these cash-rich mysterious titans of commerce can own up to 30% (and 15% of controlling shares) of banks.

Regulators have long worried that big private equity investors in bank might push for accommodating loans for their clients or push banks to make risky loans that the Fed would later have to bail out. Seems now is not the time to worry about all that.