Many developed countries, free from the U.S. impulse to see every product as something to track, do not share its inclination to frown on financial privacy.
Federal regulators must not rely on standard measures of differences between outcome rates without considering the way those measures change simply because the frequency of an outcome changes.
Banks are incessantly lobbying the CFTC to hold off on cross-border derivatives rules until other countries write their own regulations. But that could take longer than the next crisis.
The constant pillorying of banks can hardly inspire public confidence in them. Regulators should focus, instead, on peer comparisons and the encouragement of effective policies and procedures.
Brown-Vitter is a welcome display of bipartisanship. But its proposed solution to too big to fail, equity capital, is only marginally effective in imposing discipline on management.
The FDIC's decision to fund its emergency needs by calling upon banks to prepay future premiums back in 2009 suggests that the line to the Treasury may never be used.
Among other problems, Goldman never mentions that one big reason it survived and thrived is that the bailout of AIG enabled it to repay Goldman and other counterparties at par.
Public officials talk as if facilitating anonymous financial transactions is in itself somehow nefarious. But there are legitimate reasons to keep online purchases and other activity private.
Regulators, legislators, bankers, and the public should do everything they can so that Title I of Dodd-Frank works. The goal is to avoid Title II orderly liquidation at all cost.
