To understand the White House’s proposal for regulating the financial markets, start with what the Bush administration did not do. It did not offer America a plan to respond to the ongoing credit crisis or to the Federal Reserve’s dramatic intervention to prevent the collapse of Bear Stearns. It certainly did not provide a roadmap for avoiding this sort of meltdown in the future.
The Fed’s role in the Bear debacle has put taxpayers at risk of having to shoulder big losses, but the administration’s so-called regulatory reform does not address what the Bear mess made obvious: if something goes badly wrong in under-regulated or unregulated corners of the financial markets, it could topple the whole system.
In fact, the plan was mostly developed before the current financial crisis and accordingly comes across as outdated. The message of the administration’s proposals is that the markets will - and should - return to where they were before the near-collapse of Bear Stearns. It’s doubtful whether many of its suggested policies would have been apt even in that earlier context. It’s indisputable that they are inapt now.
It will be up to Congress - and the next administration - to create the necessary new rules for 21st-century financial markets. These include requirements that firms engaged in risky financial behavior maintain large amounts of high-quality capital, other limits on borrowed money and complex derivatives and incentives for bankers’ pay that hold them accountable for losses.
The administration’s proposals are premised on the notion that market discipline is the most effective tool to limit risks to the financial system. Current events show how absurd that is.
The Bush blueprint is weakest when it comes to regulation beyond banks. One key proposal would allow the Fed to gather more information from such entities as Wall Street firms, hedge funds and private equity partnerships, but it could take action only if overall financial stability was threatened. That would institutionalize the Fed’s role as bystander in a crisis. That’s a recipe for more crises.
It’s probably useless to hope for anything better from Bush administration officials. They are complicit in the credit crisis because the anti-regulatory ethos and practices of the administration fostered the conditions for the debacle. It’s difficult to solve problems of one’s own making and impossible to respond effectively if you don’t first face up to your role in causing them. The administration apparently prefers to perpetuate the myth of self-correcting global free markets, rather than own up to the fatal flaws that are now so evident in that myth.
In the end, Mr. Bush’s regulatory blueprint will allow him to leave office with that ideology intact - in his mind at least. The real work will be left to others.
댓글 안에 당신의 성숙함도 담아 주세요.
'오늘의 한마디'는 기사에 대하여 자신의 생각을 말하고 남의 생각을 들으며 서로 다양한 의견을 나누는 공간입니다. 그러나 간혹 불건전한 내용을 올리시는 분들이 계셔서 건전한 인터넷문화 정착을 위해 아래와 같은 운영원칙을 적용합니다.
자체 모니터링을 통해 아래에 해당하는 내용이 포함된 댓글이 발견되면 예고없이 삭제 조치를 하겠습니다.
불건전한 댓글을 올리거나, 이름에 비속어 및 상대방의 불쾌감을 주는 단어를 사용, 유명인 또는 특정 일반인을 사칭하는 경우 이용에 대한 차단 제재를 받을 수 있습니다. 차단될 경우, 일주일간 댓글을 달수 없게 됩니다.
명예훼손, 개인정보 유출, 욕설 등 법률에 위반되는 댓글은 관계 법령에 의거 민형사상 처벌을 받을 수 있으니 이용에 주의를 부탁드립니다.
Close
x