Which is to say that if you actually wanted to take substantive steps to address the roots of the recent economic crisis, well, you're probably out of luck. As Cato's Mark Calabria argues, the bill takes the Alfred E. Neuman approach to the root causes of the financial meltdown:
In choosing to ignore the actual causes of the financial crisis—loose monetary policy, Fannie/Freddie, and never-ending efforts to expand homeownership—and instead further expanding government guarantees behind financial risk-taking, Congress is eliminating whatever market discipline might have been left in the banking industry. But we shouldn't be surprised, since this administration and Congress have consistently chosen to ignore the real problems facing our country—unemployment, perverse government incentives for risk-taking, massive fiscal imbalances—and instead pursued an agenda of rewarding special interests and expanding government.
Here's Reason.tv with "Three Reasons the New Financial Regs Won't Fix Anything":
