BOOM. AK said it, and he’s correct:

adamkatz:

As is often the case, I think Brooks is spot on. My problem with FinReg so far (similar to my problem with Health Care Reform) was that it continues a process of centralizing control and power in both bureaucrats and big business. I have little faith that a new financial stability regulator will be any better than the Fed, Treasury, OTS, FDIC, etc. in supervising and curtailing the next bubble. I want hard rules (caps on balance sheet size, leverage ratios - the stuff Simon Johnson and James Kwak talk about) coupled with market discipline (e.g. contingent convertible bonds) on these new smaller and no longer backstopped institutions (the stuff Greg Mankiw talks about). Put those two sets of ideas together (one left, one right) and you have a pretty good fin reg bill.