NEP’s Bill Black appears on the Real News Network and explains that the Republicans’ effort to eliminate Dodd-Frank Act financial regulations serves the interests of the big financial institutions and has nothing to do with rules’ complexity or impact on the economy. You can view here with a transcript.
If the FDA approves a new drug it seems only fair that someone be required keep an eye on it and make sure it’s working, or more importantly that the medicine is not worse than the cure. And that’s with a whole lot more science at the front end of medicine than the ideologically-driven concoctions of politicians. If there were no market crashes during the time that Glass Steagal was in force, but one of exceptional severity followed its repeal, that is not proof of correlation, but if you saw someone drink from a mountain spring and keel over dead a short time later, it would be a pretty strong signal to test that water before partaking yourself, or at least check out what’s upstream.
At least we can say with confidence that whatever negative consequences Glass Steagal may have engendered, they were survivable for half a century, and whatever wonders its repeal may bestow on us appear so far seem unimpressive. But ultimately what is needed is broadly-based statistics to show who is benefiting and who is suffering historically and over time, and also evidence-based chains of probable causation to give us a better than speculative idea of why. Similarly to a therapeutic drug, we treated government’s actions as if they could profoundly affect people’s lives, we would put a similar level of caution, empirical analysis, and accountability into the release and ongoing outcomes of laws and policy.