Thoughts on Dodd-Frank Birthday: Everything is Broken

Thursday, 07/21/2011 - 8:39 am by Robert Johnson

The weakness of Dodd-Frank illustrates a crisis in governance that is sapping the vitality of the country.

Legislation is incremental. It is a reflection of compromise. Yet rarely in the history of the United States post WWII has legislation been so revealing. Revealing because, in relation to the velocity of circumstances that revealed the inadequacy of our regulatory framework, and in relation to the damage that was done to lives and living standards across America and around the world, this legislation did very little to rebalance the relationship between finance and larger society.

In essence, it was revealed that in this era of money politics people are basically defenseless against the concentrated power (even more concentrated after 2008!!) of the financial sector.