Republican House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling recently proposed a battery of changes to bank regulation in the US. Most of his ideas are political nonstarters, but his plan for an "off-ramp" that would allow banks to take riskier bets, in exchange for maintaining higher capital reserves, makes good policy sense.
CAMBRIDGE – Jeb Hensarling, the Republican chair of the Financial Services Committee in the US House of Representatives, delivered a wide-ranging speech last month at the Economic Club of New York, proposing to overhaul US financial regulation. Hensarling blamed regulators and excused Wall Street for the financial crisis; condemned government-funded bank bailouts; characterized the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial-reform legislation as a power grab; and called for increased congressional oversight of the Federal Reserve.
CAMBRIDGE – Jeb Hensarling, the Republican chair of the Financial Services Committee in the US House of Representatives, delivered a wide-ranging speech last month at the Economic Club of New York, proposing to overhaul US financial regulation. Hensarling blamed regulators and excused Wall Street for the financial crisis; condemned government-funded bank bailouts; characterized the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial-reform legislation as a power grab; and called for increased congressional oversight of the Federal Reserve.