Barney Frank Walks Away from Fed as System Risk Regulator

It looks like there will be some real good coming from the AIG bonus fiasco, as Barney Frank is taking a few steps back from his idea of the Federal Reserve as the über regulator of the economy:

A proposal to put the Federal Reserve in charge of market oversight is losing congressional support after its main backer, Barney Frank, said criticism over American International Group Inc. “undercuts” his proposal.

“There’s still a need for a systemic-risk regulator,” Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, said yesterday. “The argument for the Fed alone has lost a lot of political support. I think that’s now got to be re-looked at.”

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd and Richard Shelby, the panel’s top Republican, said March 19 they are reluctant to expand the Fed’s role, faulting the central bank for lapses leading to the financial crisis.

When one considers how opaque the operations of the Federal Reserve are, and how, of all the regulatory agencies, it was the one that failed the worst, the others being hamstrung through legislation or executive initiative, Dodd and Shelby are right to be dubious of the fed.

Just ask yourself this question: Do you want Alan "Bubbles" Greenspan to be the systemic risk regulator for the economy?