Better broth, still too many cooks

摘要

Financial regulation in America has two problems: there is both too much of it and too little. Multiple federal agencies oversee the financial system: five for banks alone, and one each for securities, derivatives and the government-spon-rnsored mortgage agencies. They share these duties with at least 50 state banking regulators and other state and federal consumer-protection agencies. Yet all these regulators failed to anticipate and prevent the worst financial crisis since the Depression, because risk-taking flourished in the cracks between them. Toxic subprime mortgages were peddled by lenders with little federal oversight and shoved into off-balance-sheet vehicles. The greatest leverage accumulated in firms that avoided the capital requirements of banks.