Sunday, November 23, 2008

Failed Regulation

The Washington Post has an article up that illustrates why the fiscal crisis was as much a failure of government, as anything else. It demolishes simplistic notions that more regulation would somehow have prevented disaster. IndyMac, WaMu, and Countrywide were all regulated by the Office of Thrift Supervision. How did that work out?

The total assets of the OTS thrifts to fail this year: $355.7 billion. Three others were forced to sell to avoid failure

Regulation and regulatory bodies like the OTS were part of the problem. There's no guarantee that new regulation or regulatory bodies will be any more effective than those that failed.

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