While the tone of this speech suggests that the regulators should be praised for their accomplishments in making the financial system better, one may also make a fair argument that the speech describes a series of regulatory mis-judgements and regulatory over-confidence, with the result being a financial system that is in many respects more fragile than it was before the crisis.

Let's start with central clearing. In the words of Vice-Chair Hoenig: "Increased use of clearing has…

The big message of the report is "deference"; i.e., at the end of the day, any national regulator that wants to enable its financial institutions to do business in another major financial center is going to be required to recognize the major clearing corporations of that jurisdiction.

The financial regulators, not only the CFTC, continue to measure themselves by the amount of money that they collect.  See, e.g.  (Oct. 16, 2014).

Financial regulators should measure themselves by the quality of the markets they regulate and by the strength of the economy. The amount of money financial regulators collect through enforcement is not a measure of either. What the CFTC should care about most is not whether it continues to collect more money, but…

The above article is a corrected version of a previous Cabinet summary of ICI's position on the FSOC Improvement Bill. In our prior summary, we stated correctly that ICI opposed the designation of funds as SIFIs, but were incorrect in our statement that ICI opposed the FSOC Improvement Bill.