Let's hope that Obama does not think that a stronger role for government means more power for the Federal Reserve. In addition to the fact that both Greenspan and Bernanke missed the housing bubble, not to mention the credit malfeasance which was their direct responsibility and which they had powers to prevent, Bernanke has shown where his sympathies lie with the bailout of Bear Stearns. A Bush nominee is not likely to favor restrictions on speculative markets.

Maybe what is needed is an oversight board for banking and markets, answering directly to Congress, that has a mandate to be a watchdog rather than a facilitator of financial industries.

An old rhetorical trick since we moderns always want to "be up to date" and "filled with new ideas." In otherwords it is not whether regulation good effects out weigh its negatives, but "that it is old fashion" or "an old idea" that means it is not worthy.

Watch out for that 'old style big government'. The Republican style big government is so much more palatable -- one that consumes ever larger amounts of money, employs more and more people, but does less and less, and incurs massive debts.

Don't worry when the new style big government defaults on it's debt, and fails to provide basic services to its citizens, we can blame it on the democrats and replace it with a for profit government.

Citizens 2.0 will feel much better knowing that there is no possibility of curtailing the powers of their owners.

Wasn't it (quasi) government intervention (the fed) that created all the right elements of easy credit for these types of loans to exist? This inability to distinguish the cause from the solution is how governments are able to grab more and more power under the guise of offering 'protection' to the common investor.

No, Mark it wasn't government intervention that created the right elements. If the banks weren't able to a) securitize their loans and b) get good ratings for those securities in order to sell them and finance more loans they would have to deal with the risky loans in the old fashioned way, i.e. refuse to give them in the first place or raise their interest rates overall to accomodate the risk, making their offers less desirable in the process. It's the tools of the financial engineering and the recklessness of the people involved that did it not the big bad government.

I only wish that I believed Obama would actually regulate the financial industry.

a return to an older-style big-government Democratic platform skeptical of market forces?" --Dean Baker

it seems to me that there is nothing inherently wrong in being skeptical of market forces

in fact it makes sense to be skeptical of market forces

Dean:
I was intrigued by your headline reference to "Paperclip" but your post made no reference thereto. I speedread the WSJ article (to keep from barfing on the spot) and failed to note with my 77 year old eyes a "paperclip" reference. What intrigued me about "paperclip" is the story of a partner in a prominent Boston law firm who mercilessly chastized his associates for using paperclips rather than stapling. Apparently in handling a major deal in his earlier years of practice, some documents separated from a paperclip, causing him a great deal of embarrassment later on with the deal.

Shag,

i was joking about the paperclip. The point is that Obama was referring to undeniable facts about the economy (i.e. the growth in inequality). If talking about these facts makes someone an "old government type" then it would make as much sense to call them an old government type because they use paperclips.

The concentration of wealth that we have seen in recent decades has been in part due to a regulatory structure that is designed to redistribute upward. Complaining about this structure hardly makes you an old government type (whatever that is).