Matthew Yglesias of Think Progress says the Obama regulatory reform plan is strong on a couple of points. Yglesias likes the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (a sentiment we're not hearing much of in here), and he likes the plan for giving regulators more leeway for resolving the problems of "too big to fail" institutions.

But don't get your hopes up, he writes:

Our past two bubbles have brought extremely low unemployment, and created huge quantities of paper wealth that individuals became psychologically anchored to. You can give regulators all the statutory authority you like, and the fact remains that there's bound to be enormous reluctance to actually pull the trigger. It's always hard to get government to clamp down on activities that very rich and powerful people want to engage in. When you're talking about doing so in a way that could also jeopardize the jobs and 401(k)s of a mass public, well, it's very hard.

categories: News

11:59 - June 17, 2009

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