No Regulation without Risk
Letter to the Editor
Alex J. Pollock | Barrons
November 09, 2009

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"How are you going to regulate systemic risk when you are the systemic risk?" This excellent question of Senator Jim Bunning to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke hasn’t been answered by the Fed or anybody else. Nonetheless, the Fed, which had a big part in inflating the bubble, is now nominated by some elected representatives of the people to be a philosopher-king of systemic risk. Let us hope this notion will fail to get enacted.

Thomas G. Donlan, in the Oct. 26 Editorial Commentary, suggests that such ideas are a matter of "false faith." He's right. After having observed financial regulation fail time after time, its adherents still display this touching (or pathetic) faith that somehow it will work next time, if we just make it even more pervasive and more intrusive.

Alex J. Pollock is a resident fellow at AEI.

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About the Author

 

Alex J.
Pollock
  • Alex Pollock joined AEI in 2004 after thirty-five years in banking. He was president and chief executive officer of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago from 1991 to 2004. He is the author of numerous articles on financial systems and the organizer of the “Deflating Bubble” series of AEI conferences. In 2007, he developed a one-page mortgage form to help borrowers understand their mortgage obligations. At AEI, he focuses on financial policy issues, including housing finance, government-sponsored enterprises, retirement finance, corporate governance, accounting standards, and the banking system. He is the lead director of CME Group, a director of Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation and the International Union for Housing Finance, and chairman of the board of the Great Books Foundation.

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  • Phone: 2028627190
    Email: apollock@aei.org

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