If Obama told me he would shut Barbra Streisand up if he wins the presidency, I would totally vote for him. But she sang at his $28,500/person dinner tonight so I don't think that's in the cards unfortunately for me.
In case, like me, you're struggling with the gobbledegook of the financial crisis and what the heck "regulation" actually means, a few quotes below:
The Democrats throughout the past year have been calling for the kind of control that the Fed has over banks, which is super-strict oversight. It would mean Wall Street firms would have to keep larger "capital reserves" (actual money I think) on hand. The problem is that it means less money for lending, trading, and "underwriting new securities."
While Republicans advocate an updating of regulations (they are currently fragmented, difficult to understand, and many are obsolete), they ideologically reject strict or severe regulation of financial activity. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (who was Hamilton's graduation speaker last year) stated the general gist of what Republicans are hoping for:
“The objective here is to get the balance right,” Mr. Paulson said last week. “Regulation needs to catch up with innovation and help restore investor confidence but not go so far as to create new problems, make our markets less efficient or cut off credit to those who need it.”
Another issue with regulation is the experiences of the past. Some point to the fact that despite having bank regulators, they
"did little to slow the explosive growth of high-risk subprime mortgages, many of which were “liar’s loans” that did not require borrowers to verify their incomes."
Essentially... there's a difference between "strict" regulation and "consolidating" regulation. There are problems with both, but both McCain and Obama are calling for more regulations on Wall Street. Congrats to anyone who actually could have explained any of this without Google.
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