Who Regulates the Regulators?

After months of discussions between Treasury officials, federal regulators, members of Congress, the financial industry, consumer stakeholders, academics, and President Barack Obama himself, the administration released a Financial Regulatory Reform plan on Wednesday.

In 87 pages, the proposal covers nearly every aspect of the financial system, making it the most comprehensive regulatory overhaul since Franklin Delano Roosevelt's post-Depression restructuring. But despite its broad strokes, it's not the kind of radical change that many on the left had been hoping for -- not a new New Deal, or even, as its title trumpets, a New Foundation. But every expert I spoke with said that it is a positive step for the country's financial health. The question now is whether Congress, making the proposal law, will improve it or make it worse.