Recently, I described financial reform as a “petri dish” of pending legislation. The government is tackling too many issues at the same time. Without constants—we don’t know how markets will react to all the moving pieces.
It gets worse. Last night The Wall Street Journal profiled the back-room deals working their way through pending legislation. I guess you can hide anything in a 1,500 page document. And those legislative walkabouts are what trouble me.
How can we trust financial reform when approval depends on non-related issues?
Here are five “amendments” that have nothing to do with sub-prime debt, banking leverage, or even the flash crash of two weeks ago. I’ve dubbed them the “Fungus Five,” because they call into question the Congressional focus on “getting it right.”
"The Gods of Greenwich is a pure delight, racing relentlessly from the bedrooms of Manhattan to the boardrooms of Connecticut to the banks of Iceland. Bravo!”
