So now Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson is warning that the financial meltdown might create too restrictive a regulatory environment for financial companies:

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson called the financial crisis now plaguing the world economy a “once or twice” in a 100 years event, even as he warned Thursday against imposing too-strict regulations to prevent a repeat calamity.

The translation for this is, “I made my money because the SEC and the CFTC were muzzled, so I could use deception and extortion to get money out of the average working Joe’s pocket, and this should not change, because I have relatives.”

Paulson is an idiot. While the financial crisis we’re having right now mirrors the stock market crash in 1928, almost 80 years ago, the fact is that these fiscal implosions have gotten more common as we have backed off regulation, and before 19289, they happened every decade or so.

The reason that nothing has happened in the past 80 years is because of the regulations you dispise, and the reason that it is happening now is because of the slow deregulatory movements from about 1975-2001, and the rush to deregulate since then.