FT Alphaville � A matter of (not having any) trust

Your chart du jour:

It shows the findings of the latest quarterly Financial Trust Index from professors at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University business schools. The index found that “trust in the financial system dropped to 25 percent in September from 26 percent in July 2010, the Index’s all-time high.” (The index is only about two years old.)

Not that Americans love the banking sector, they just dislike Dodd-Frank even more:

In what was one of the most sweeping pieces of legislation enacted since the Great Depression, only 12 percent of respondents declared they were satisfied with the Dodd-Frank Bill while 54 percent of Americans were dissatisfied. Two-thirds of respondents believe it is insufficient to protect against future bailouts. The majority of Republicans (80 percent) are dissatisfied with the bill, as are Independents (54 percent). The level of those “satisfied” and “very satisfied” is low even among Democrats (35 percent).

The origins of the overwhelming dissatisfaction with the bill were examined using two questions related to its key provisions: the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) and the new regulation of banks enacted to prevent future bailouts. The responses suggest that the Dodd-Frank Bill failed to convince American voters of its utility on both dimensions and found that only 34 percent of respondents think that the CFPA is a “useful agency to protect consumers.” The majority of the opposition stems from the perception that the CFPA is “useless bureaucracy” (27 percent) and “overreaching of government power” (25 percent).