How will financial reform actually work?
TEXT OF STORY
Steve Chiotakis: President Obama has some signing to do. Financial regulatory reform passed the Senate yesterday. Now the question is how’s it all gonna work? Marketplace’s Jennifer Collins has more on the bill.
Jennifer Collins: It creates an office to protect you when you use your credit card. It sets up a council of regulators to watch the economy for things like the housing bubble. Regulatory consultant Eugene Ludwig says these are big steps.
Eugene Ludwig: Though it’s not the kind of fun thing that gets you going in the morning.
Unless of course you’re someone like Eugene Ludwig. And he says we still don’t know how these regulations will actually work.
Ludwig: The application of these rules is immensely important in terms of the balance it strikes between innovation and growth on the one hand and stability and safety on the other.
Ludwig says the bill leaves that balance to the regulators, many of whom haven’t been hired yet. Lawrence White teaches economics at NYU:
Lawrence White A couple of years down the road, the Congress can revisit the issues. Worst case then the Congress gets into the business of legislating the details.
At that point, we’ll have hired a few* new regulators. Maybe that’ll at least help the job market.
I’m Jennifer Collins for Marketplace.
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