By Mark Thoma on Regulation

"Credit Crisis Cassandra"

I have argued that the attitudes toward regulation were the biggest problem in creating this crisis, and this article reinforces that view. The people in charge of the regulatory agencies were convinced that unregulated markets were self-correcting, and that regulation was not needed and would more likely do harm than good. As this shows, no amount of convincing from people who weren't as smart as the smartest guys in the room was going to change that. The question for me is whether those in charge now, Summers for example, have learned their lesson and the humility to be derived from it, or whether they will be defensive of their own role to the extent that it affects the type of regulation they can support. I'd very much like to believe they have learned their lesson, though humility seems to be lacking, but watching Summers and others argue that the private sector and the market is preferable to temporary government takeover of banks (i.e. his and the administration's opposition to temporary nationalization),  - the continued faith that the market always knows best - makes me wonder if they have. One more note on Summers. I wasn't in favor of him when he was picked to be part of the administration because I thought he carried far too much political baggage. If he has value, it is not as a spokesperson for the administration. But again and again I heard that he was the only one smart enough to do this job. I don't believe that and never will, but if it's true, fine, put him in an office somewhere, let him be smart and helpful, but above all keep him out of the public eye. He does not help as a spokesman for the administration, he hurts the cause every time he opens his mouth. At first it seemed like he was going to be the key spokesperson on financial matters and as I said, I thought that was a mistake. But lately I haven't heard much from him, most of his work appears to be behind the scenes, and as far as I'm concerned, that's a very good development in terms of the public presentation of the administration's views

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