On (De)Regulation and the Bush Administration
I know that its the only way to deflect the well deserved blame for current mortgage/financial/credit crisis … but as Jeff Jacoby points out the facts just do not square with the Democrat storyline.
Unfortunately for those of us who believe that the free market would more quickly deal with corruption and excess than ever expanding government intervention this ain’t good news either. But at the very least it demonstrates that government micromanaging the economy from inside the DC beltway is not the answer.
Like the alligators lurking in New York City sewers, Bush’s massive regulatory rollback is mostly urban legend. Far from throwing out the rulebook, the administration has expanded it: Since Bush became president, the Federal Register – the government’s annual compendium of proposed and finalized regulations – has run to more than 74,000 pages every year but one. During the Clinton years, by contrast, the Federal Register reached that length just once.
Then there’s this article I keep meaning to highlight but have only gotten around to today.
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Interesting metric: the length of the Federal Register, in pages. I wonder how it really correlates to the level of regulation.
Everyone is looking for someone to blame. It was ALL OF THEM!
And yes deregulation AND lack of enforcement both have a role in the crisis. The 1999 legislation did in fact play a role. There is no regulation of the CDS market and they need to. The way that this HAS TO WORK, is that a set of ground rules are set in place and then the markets work themselves out. You MUST have the regulations/ground rules or no one knows how to play the game, as is the case with the CDS.
-Erik