And there is a lot of skepticism, particularly about expanding the Federal Reserve’s regulatory role, because, as Alan “Bubbles” demonstrated, you could end up with an incompetent lunatic running the most opaque organization in Washington, see here, here, here

They should be concerned. While insulation from oversight and public input might be a good thing when one manages the monetary system and has to create a recession to reign in inflation, it is not when you are talking about regulating agencies.

I think that this is something that Lawrence Summers wanted, because he believes that Obama will appoint him to succeed “Helicopter” Ben Bernanke, and he wants more authority at what he sees as his future position.

One thing that does concern me is that one of the biggest failures in this of failures, the corruption in the way ratings agencies like S&P and Moody’s operate, is largely untouched.

I’m unimpressed, but I agree with Paul Krugman when he says, “One thing I was concerned about was whether this consumer financial protection agency would be toothless , but the opposition of [a bank lobby group] makes me believe that it’s not such a bad idea after all,” when he talks about moving the regulation of consumer loans out of the Federal Reserve and move it to a dedicated consumer credit protection agency.

It’s too little, too timid, and too friendly to the forces that created this in the first place.