Obama Will Address the Obvious

Sunday's New York Times reported that the Obama administration "plans to move quickly to tighten the nation's financial regulatory system."

Are we supposed to be surprised? Thrilled? Grateful?  Even if considering only the most recent frauds and economic strife, one would hope the new governance would make finding a fast and lasting fix Priority Number One. 

And ... wasn't the Treasury Department already working on this?

A precedent exists, at least in planning form, for a systemic change to the financial regulatory system. Both the Treasury and prior presidential administrations have noted similar goals, as early as 1984.

In this year of burst bubbles, market crashes, bankruptcies, bailouts, foreclosures, fraud, losses and lessons, will a plan finally become action?

Officials told the Times that they will make wide-ranging changes, including stricter federal rules for hedge funds, credit rating agencies and mortgage brokers, and greater oversight of the complex financial instruments that contributed to the economic crisis. The proposals, according to those officials, are aimed at "core regulatory problems and gaps that have been highlighted by the market crisis," including "lax government oversight of financial institutions and lenders, poor risk management efforts by banks and other financial companies, the creation of exotic financial instruments that were not adequately supported by their issuing companies, and risky and ill-considered borrowing habits of many homeowners whose homes are now worth significantly less than their mortgages."

The regulatory changes are reportedly a piece of broader legislation in the works by the new administration to address the financial crisis.