regulation

Despite escalating outrage over rampant foreclosure fraud, the Federal Reserve now appears ready to eviscerate a key mortgage regulation in an effort to spare banks the losses from their own wrongdoing. more »

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This is a joke. Politico is floating the idea that notorious Wall Street crony Rep. Melissa Bean, D-Ill., could be tapped to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau if she loses her close election with Republican Joe Walsh. Even for Politico's rumor-mill, this is pretty funny stuff—only slightly less absurd than suggesting that Alan Greenspan might be picked to head the new agency. more »

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Corporate America is on the attack in every state. As Joshua Holland explains for AlterNet, outside groups have spent somewhere between $750,000 and more than $2 million in an attempt to unseat Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA) in a state where ad buys come cheap. more »

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Over at bloggingheads, my CAF colleague Bill Scher discusses the new international banking standards with Conn Carroll, a conservative blogger for The Heritage Foundation. Carroll actually agrees with a lot of what I have to say about Basel III, but I he draws conclusions from my post that overemphasize the role of regulation and ignore the insane lobbying and outright fraud that Wall Street deployed to create a crisis.

The fact that Carroll and I can agree on this stuff (to an extent) shouldn't come as a terrible shock—Wall Street reform is about the basic functioning of the economy—it's not an issue that needs to ignite ideological conflict. Here are his key comments:

"I like the acknowledgement that the problem of this last financial crisis had to do with a problem of regulation."

Nothing wrong there. You'd have to be insane to believe that financial regulations—or the regulators who implemented them—were up to snuff. But here's where I part ways with Carroll:

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Reports are conflicting, details are uncertain, the White House isn't talking on-the-record, and after a confusing evening, it's still unclear exactly what is going on with Elizabeth Warren's next job. In one sense, it looks like President Barack Obama is pulling out all the stops to get Warren running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. more »

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It's been two days, and the new Basel III bank regulations are still lousy. more »

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Nobody seriously disputes whether Elizabeth Warren is the best-qualified candidate to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Everybody recognizes the bipartisan political appeal that Warren has with voters, and Democratic strategists know that no action in their power would play better to the party's base than a Warren nomination—a vital maneuver ahead of the November elections. more »

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International bank regulators have finally agreed to a new set of rules to rein in financial excess, and the reviews thus far are cautiously more »

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Ezra Klein has a pretty silly post up about the Wall Street regulation bill and the SEC's funding. He argues that since the SEC failed miserably in the years leading up to the crisis, it's absurd to see them getting more funding in its aftermath. more »

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A lot of CNBC anchors do not seem to understand how regulation works. In fact, it appears that the network's hosts don't really grasp how basic economic competition works. If you've tuned into the business channel this summer, chances are you've heard its star reporters pushing the ridiculous bank lobbyist mantra that new consumer protections will actually make life harder for consumers. more »

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