The SEC seems to have taken a real interest in both requiring improved disclosure by municipal entities and in bringing enforcement actions when disclosures or statements by municipal entities contain material misstatements or omissions. At some point, sooner or later, the politics of this will come to a head, posing the question: will municipal entities be subject to the same disclosure requirements that apply to private entities?

Regulators may want to consider tempering these kinds of victory speeches with a little less self-congratulation and a little more reflection. Just by the law of averages, not every rule works or is worthwhile. Regulators may want to allow for the possibility that the massive regulatory burdens that have been imposed since the financial crisis may require some reconsideration.

Regulators might ask, for example, why so many community banks are shutting down at…

From a systemic risk standpoint, not only is lowering the dealer threshold largely irrelevant, in fact, the regulators likely could raise the dealer threshold materially without significantly increasing the percentage of swaps dealer business that is done by unregulated firms. Lowering the dealer threshold is less likely to cause more firms to register than it is to cause more firms either to reduce their level of business or to drop out of swaps dealing entirely, thus both reducing the…

Senator Warren's letter is based on the political premise that the financial crash was caused by the criminal conduct of a few people at the big banks, and that if there had not been such misconduct, the financial crisis would never have occurred. The Senator might want to focus on less political but more practical concerns that have real implications for the economy: (i) the high level of federal and municipal debt, and the possibility of additional governmental insolvency, (ii) the…