Who better to turn to for perspective on Sen. Chris Dodd’s new Wall Street overhaul than a top former regulator? That’s what CNBC did this afternoon, inviting Bill Isaac, a former chairman of FDIC during the 1980s, to discuss Dodd’s comprehensive new bill and its ramifications on our financial markets, consumer protections, and the like. What Isaac had to say was a blunt reality check on Dodd’s new bill.
The former regulator, now the head of an international consulting firm, said flatly that there is “no significant financial reform in this bill.” The root causes of our regulatory failures, Isaac said, reside in lackluster watchdogs like the Treasury Department, Federal Reserve, and the Securities and Exchange Commission. By expanding the Treasury and Fed’s power and “ignoring” the SEC, Dodd’s bill merely glosses over the institutional problems in need of serious repair, Isaac said. “This is not a serious financial reform proposal,” he said. “Senator Dodd himself back in November put forward a much more sweeping reform of our regulatory system. Our regulatory system is broken. It needs a sweeping overhaul.”
