Financial reform

I don't know much about the Senate financial reform bill, but others do. Here's Edmund Andrews and here's Paul Krugman.

One criticism from the left is that the bill leaves too many of the specifics to the discretion of regulatory agencies and doesn't hardwire enough into law. I disagree: there are a million ways that regulations can have unintended consequences or that banks can find loopholes to circumvent them (wait, can you circumvent through a loophole)? I'd rather let the regulatory agencies that have the expertise craft specific regulations within a broad framework set by Congress. Of course that means we need to elect governments that will appoint good regulators and keep a watchful eye on what they're doing, but that's kind of unavoidable in a democracy.