Debate Pros and Cons of Regulation of Two Prominent Economists

“The record shows the Federal Reserve was never ahead of a crisis. The SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] was given pages, 20 pages, explaining what [indicted financier Bernard] Madoff was doing, and they could not figure it out. To give them more power to regulate is a nonstarter,” he said.

Meltzer said the proper course of action is to eliminate taxpayer relief for financial institutions that have come to be called “too big to fail.” “If we don’t get rid of ‘too big to fail,’ we’ll sooner or later have another crisis just as bad as this because ‘too big to fail’ encourages banks to believe that they make the profits and the taxpayers take the losses.” read more...