Dodd embarks on an age-old quest

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) this week joined the generations of dreamers who have advocated for eliminating the nation's muddle of bank regulators, arguing that a single agency would be more efficient and would end the ability of banks to choose the most lenient supervisor.

"The financial crisis," Dodd said Tuesday, "exposed a financial regulatory structure that was the product of historic accidents, one after another, over the past 80 years, created piece by piece over decades, with little thought given to how it would function as a whole and unable to prevent threats to our economic security."

But Dodd confronts a broad range of critics including bankers, regulators and fellow legislators who warn that his plan overlooks the strengths of the current patchwork and ignores the potential downsides of consolidation.

They argue that community banks and international behemoths need different kinds of oversight. They also note that the various agencies possess meaningfully different perspectives. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., for example, tends to look out for the interests of smaller banks, while the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency traditionally has been mindful of the concerns of larger institutions.

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Now I have a libertarian view on this... so but I know that people here have talked about how Dodd wants to get power taken away from the federal reserve and how that would be a good thing. That's only looking at half of the picture. That's the conspiracy view- that if we take away power from the fed we'll all be saved. It won't mean anything if we just divert the power from the federal reserve to the other agencies. This is just creating a gigantic agency filled with all sorts of bureaucrats... and while these other agencies failed in predicting the financial collapse or while they helped cause it... we're expected to believe that this huge mega regulator will help solve all of our problems? I think people should really wake up and take a look more serious look at these issues. I don't think that this will be the be all end all of our problems. Government regulation usually never is.