One of the problems with financial regulation is that, contrary to the advice of Bill Belichick, the regulators do not seem adequately focused on doing their job. Recent findings showed that major regional banks failed because, among other things, the regulators were slow to respond to warning signs as to very old-fashioned risks, interest rate mismatches. The to develop standards to climate issues and other "non-traditional financial information."  Now the PCAOB proposes that auditors…

Potential legal challengers to the recent spate of SEC rulemaking have to be pleased by the fact that their doubts as to the SEC's justification for its rulemakings and the legality of the SEC's process are shared by two of the SEC Commissioners.   

This is the second time in a week that MFA questioned the SEC's authority to adopt a rule. (See previous coverage .) There are a number of other SEC proposals that could very well attract similar legal challenge.  

What makes these potential legal challenges even more interesting is that many of the proposals do not have unanimous support even within the SEC. They were put forward along party-lines with dissents by commissioners who warned that the rule changes were ill-…

It is understandable that the FRB assigns some blame for the various bank failures on the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act which they said, “impeded effective supervision [of SVB] by reducing standards, increasing complexity, and promoting a less assertive supervisory approach." It is not as obvious how well this blame is placed.

The reasons why the various banks failed appears to be straightforward: massive exposure to interest rate risk combined…