Four Key Elements to Successful Financial Regulatory Reform

The most recent crisis on Wall Street presents our nation with an extraordinary opportunity to begin a conversation about the economic and social policies that have led to the financial meltdown we have witnessed over the past few years. In keeping with the timely and crucial theme of the Hastings Business Journal's 2009 Symposium, this Article does not chronicle the crisis, but rather focuses on the lessons it might hold in getting "beyond the bailout." To mitigate, or perhaps even avoid, future disasters I argue that policymakers should focus on remedying four pernicious facilitators to scandal: dissemination of untruthful or misleading financial information, abuse of regulatory gaps, exploitation of credulous consumers, and the ability to use corporate size to privatize profits and socialize costs.