Did Deregulation Cause the Financial Crisis?
While many regulators may have been shortsighted and over-confident in their own ability to spare our financial markets from collapse, this failing is one of regulation, not deregulation. When one scratches below the surface of the “deregulation” argument, it becomes apparent that the usual suspects, like the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, did not cause the current crisis and that the supposed refusal of regulators to deal with derivatives and “predatory” mortgages would have had little impact on the actual course of events, as these issues were not central to the crisis. To explain the financial crisis, and avoid the next one, we should look at the failure of regulation, not at a mythical deregulation.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/v31n4/cpr31n4-1.html
Banking deregulation of restrictions on branching and interstate banking lifted a set of constraints that had prevented better-run banks from gaining ground over their less efficient rivals. Big changes in the banking industry followed deregulation: many acquisitions and consolidation, integration across state lines, and a decline in the market share of small banks.
These changes allowed banks to offer better services to their customers at lower prices. As a result, the real economy – “Main Street” as it were – seems to have benefited. Overall economic growth accelerated following deregulation, and this faster growth seems to have been concentrated among new businesses. Sometimes we think that higher returns necessarily bring higher risk. But in the case of banking deregulation, volatility of the economy declined as growth went up.
http://fic.wharton.upenn.edu/fic/papers/02/0239.pdf
On How to take moral hazard out of banking
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/50664eb8-dfaa-11de-98ca-00144feab49a.html
Thank you, Cato and Wharton are good sources. Restoring Glass-Steagall would only make it less convenient for both the Wall Street and Main Street to do business (sort of like recreating the infamous Jamie Gorelick's Wall between FBI and CIA) and just roll back the advances in US banking system that the Main Street benefited from. It would not in the least affect the root causes of economic near-collapse and would make economic recovery more difficult, in the similar way that hastily created Sarbanes-Oxley hindered the recovery post-Enron and post-Internet bubble.
Sarbox R.I.P.?
Could the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 be repealed? The question is not quite as far-fetched as it once was. For one, the House of Representatives is likely to consider a Sarbox amendment that would permanently exempt small publicly traded companies (those with a market cap of $75 million or less) from the requirement to have an auditor opinion on internal controls. At the same time, the U.S. Supreme Court is slated to hear a case this month alleging that the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), which was created by Sarbox, is unconstitutional. .....
In the meantime, the Chair of FDIC (which closes banks almost every week due to insufficient reserves or other going concerns) and Treasury Secretary are pushing the banks to loosen the lending to people who obviously can't repay the loans. And Obama administration is ratcheting up the stimulus just as the Fed is being responsible and starting the exit strategy by pulling back:
Taxpayer Burden Eases to $8.2 Trillion as Obama Supplants Fed - BL, 2009 December 23
The amount the Fed and U.S. agencies have lent, spent or guaranteed has fallen 15 percent since September to $8.2 trillion, the lowest in a year, based on data compiled by Bloomberg. Spending on infrastructure, tax breaks and other fiscal measures account for 52 percent of the total, up from 39 percent in March, as central bank loan programs are phased out. The change marks a new phase of public intervention in the economy. Congress and the administration’s $4.2 trillion portion, which amounts to 30 percent of everything produced in the country this year, also complicates any future exit strategy. It may be tough for elected officials to quit spending, prolonging the bailout and adding to the federal budget deficit. “There’s a danger of getting addicted to fiscal stimulus programs,” said David Wyss, chief economist with New York-based Standard & Poor’s, in an interview. ..... Congress and the Obama administration are taking a bigger role in the rescue of the economy from the Federal Reserve, shifting the strategy to stimulus spending from central bank lending.