Because wars in Iraq and Afghanistan don’t seem to be enough for the guy, President Obama is looking to start a third brutal conflict, this time with our nation’s largest financial institutions.

In a speech last Thursday the President committed to giving bank regulators the power to limit the size of the country’s biggest banks and to limit how much risk they could take in trading securities with your deposit money. This had long been the goal sought by former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker. Volcker advised the nation long ago that banks shouldn’t be able to trade financial securities (like including mortgage-backed securities) using customers’ checking and savings deposits. These losses created the credit crisis of 2008.

According to the President:

When banks benefit from the safety net that taxpayers provide, which includes lower cost capital, it is not appropriate for them to turn around and use that cheap money to trade for profit. And that is especially true when this kind of trading often puts banks in direct conflict with their customers’ interests.

The fact is, these kinds of trading operations can create enormous and costly risks, endangering the entire bank if things go wrong. We simply cannot accept a system in which hedge funds or private equity firms inside banks can place huge, risky bets that are subsidized by taxpayers and that could pose a conflict of interest. And we cannot accept a system in which shareholders make money on these operations if the bank wins, but taxpayers foot the bill if the bank loses.

It’s for these reasons that I’m proposing a simple and common-sense reform, which we’re calling the Volcker Rule, after this tall guy behind me. Banks will no longer be allowed to own, invest or sponsor hedge funds, private equity funds or proprietary trading operations for their own profit unrelated to serving their customers.

Obama says that he’s ready to fight, but he will need to be well armed to tackle these guys. (They have been applying for gun permits after all.)

Now we won’t actually see pistols at dawn, since bankers wouldn’t actually endanger themselves or get their Gucci loafers muddy in a dewy field. Heck, they don’t even allow anyone to endanger their bonuses. Bankers fight with bucks.

So what we will see is a calculated campaign of lobbying and political ads targeting Obama and any members of Congress who speak out in favor of this plan. And this is made easier by the recent Supreme Court ruling that now allows corporations to basically spend unlimited amounts of money to influence political campaigns.  This should get interesting.