To allow firms to publish research reports on open-end companies seems to make good sense even if the firms are participating in the distribution of the same companies' shares. Both Congress and the SEC should be looking for ways to ease the restrictions of regulations governing the production of investment research, since research provides real public benefits even in instances involving conflicts of interest.

That said, this bill is an example of Congress becoming too prescriptive…

Mr. Deas, the representative of a large coalition of end users of derivatives, argues that capital and margin regulations raise end users' costs. His statement provides a clear description of how costs imposed on "Wall Street" (financial market intermediaries) affect "Main Street" (commercial entities).

By contrast, Mr. Gellasch, a lawyer and executive director at a public interest advocacy group, asserts that the end users have not been injured. Mr. Gellasch's position is that …

The GAO Report focused on government expenditure and regulatory fragmentation. Implicit in the Report is that such fragmentation has an enormous cost for the private sector. Examiners from different agencies investigated the same institution for what is essentially the same activity. The result was minimal differences between regulators’ assessments of near-identical products for roughly twice the cost.

A market with significantly diminished liquidity is likelier to experience a downward price plunge than one with sufficient liquidity. Whether this is because a large sale cannot be absorbed by the market or a series of small transactions sets off an escalating panic is a different question. It is possible that the causes of diminished liquidity (e.g., higher capital charges and the Volcker Rule) are sufficiently beneficial to be worth the loss. Even so, there becomes a point when the…