Personally, I’m still working over regulatory reform in my mind. I’ve read Simon Johnson and others and see their points in favor of changing the rules but at the same time I’m frightened about what might come out of the swamp we call a Congress. I expect to do a post (maybe several) on this sometime this week but in the meantime I thought some of you might enjoy the comments from a blog called the Epicurean Deal Maker (hereafter referred to as TED).
Now if you haven’t stumbled across TED before, let me caution you that it is an acquired taste. The author who remains anonymous is supposedly a Wall Street M&A guy. I say supposedly because you never know if these authors that pass themselves off as a BSD Wall Street type might in fact be the guy in the mail room.He talks like a banker which is to say he loves the F-Bomb but that aside, he writes entertaining posts. Anyway, he has a good argument for getting on with regulation and making it tough as nails.
I’ll probably end up disagreeing with a lot of his ideas but I do like this idea:
Wipe the slate clean and start over with some broad principles and some smart, well-paid technocrats and ex-investment bankers who can figure it out on the fly. Let them hire killers and mercenaries who are smart enough not only to enforce existing rules, but also anticipate those areas and practices that will require regulation in the future. How do you think the financial sector itself manages its own business?
If you’re ever going to really regulate Wall Street you have to hire people that aren’t afraid to take prisoners. Easily said, hard to implement.