In today's Wall Street Journal, Peter Wallison nicely dissects a truly frightful proposal of a man who is, quite Frankly, a hypocrite of first rank. Here are Wallison's opening paragraphs:
that Congress would no longer be interested in creating companies seen
by the market as backed by the government. Yet that is exactly what the
relevant congressional committees — the Senate Banking Committee and
the House Financial Services Committee — are now considering.
In the wake of the financial crisis, the idea rapidly gaining
strength in Washington is to create a systemic risk regulator. The
principal sponsor of the plan is Barney Frank, the chair of the House
Financial Services Committee. A recent report by the Group of Thirty (a
private sector organization of financial regulation specialists),
written by a subcommittee headed by Paul Volcker, also endorsed the
idea, as has the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Securities Industry
Financial Markets Association.
Anyone who imagines, even for a split second, that this sort of regulation is a good idea is hopelessly delusional.
