Rules need to catch up

ARTICLE: Crisis Prompts Calls for Federal Rescue Entity, By Lori Montgomery, Washington Post, September 16, 2008; Page A06

Barney Frank and others considering the need for some sort of permanent panic-regulator in the U.S. financial system.

I think something of this sort is inevitable, along with the appearance of such entities in advanced Core economies ultimately triggering some international version (either and competitive to the IMF/World Bank or forcing their evolution in this direction).

Clear trend: each system perturbing financial panic going back to late 80s seems to require longer recovery period, meaning we're operating a much larger and more expansive and penetrating international financial system than the one the relatively small West had going previously, but we're still running this behemoth on rules built for the old reality.

Comments

[Andrew]

True, but that is system is always finding new and innovative (not to mention complex) ways of operating. Not so sure that any regulatory body will be able to keep up or do anything to prevent panics other than assuage markets. Maybe, to use Tom's parlance, an A-Z rule set on how these recoveries should go is the right direction. I don't think you can keep up with the dynamism of the global system in a regulatory sense, but perhaps we can get good at putting it back together.