First, a very thoughtful, clear, and succinct speech by Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser titled "Reducing Financial Fragility by Ending Too Big to Fail." It's interesting to see a (another?) Fed President basically say that the whole Dodd-Frank / Basel structure is wrong-headed. Two little gems:
There is probably no better example of rule writing that violates the basic principles of simple, robust regulation than risk-weighted capital calculations.No surprise, I agree.
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Remember that Title II resolution is available only when there are concerns about systemic risk. Just imagine the highly political issue of determining whether a firm is systemically important, especially if it has not been designated so by the Financial Stability Oversight Committee beforehand....
...Creditors will perceive that their payoffs will be determined through a regulatory resolution process, which could be influenced through political pressure rather than subject to the rule of law
Second, Anat Admati and Martin Hellwig have an addition to their "Banker's new clothes" book (my review), 23 Flawed Claims Debunked. Don't miss the fun footnotes. Anat and Martin get some sort of medal for patience in wading through dreck.
