The WaPo has a story about how Countrywide Mortgage went regulator shopping to find a more compliant agency, they ended up going with the Office of Thrift Supervision, who wooed the now disgraced mortgage lender. Why?

Winning Countrywide was important for OTS, which is funded by assessments on the roughly 750 banks it regulates, with the largest firms paying much of the freight. Washington Mutual paid 13 percent of the agency’s budget in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, according to OTS figures. Countrywide provided 5 percent. Individual firms tend to make a larger difference to OTS finances than other bank regulators because the agency oversees fewer companies with fewer assets.

Yes, let’s make sure that regulators are paid by the industries that they regulate.

Let’s make sure that regulators are forced to compete for who they regulate.

That way, they won’t regulate at all.