Marketplace®

Daily business news and economic stories

How will financial reform actually work?

Financial regulatory reform passed the Senate yesterday. Jennifer Collins explores the nitty-gritty of how that will work.

Download

TEXT OF STORY

Steve Chiotakis: President Obama has some signing to do. Financial regulatory reform passed the Senate yesterday. Now the question is how’s it all gonna work? Marketplace’s Jennifer Collins has more on the bill.


Jennifer Collins: It creates an office to protect you when you use your credit card. It sets up a council of regulators to watch the economy for things like the housing bubble. Regulatory consultant Eugene Ludwig says these are big steps.

Eugene Ludwig: Though it’s not the kind of fun thing that gets you going in the morning.

Unless of course you’re someone like Eugene Ludwig. And he says we still don’t know how these regulations will actually work.

Ludwig: The application of these rules is immensely important in terms of the balance it strikes between innovation and growth on the one hand and stability and safety on the other.

Ludwig says the bill leaves that balance to the regulators, many of whom haven’t been hired yet. Lawrence White teaches economics at NYU:

Lawrence White A couple of years down the road, the Congress can revisit the issues. Worst case then the Congress gets into the business of legislating the details.

At that point, we’ll have hired a few* new regulators. Maybe that’ll at least help the job market.

I’m Jennifer Collins for Marketplace.

Related Topics

Tagged as:

Latest Episodes

View All Shows
  • Make Me Smart
    15 hours ago
    25:50
  • Marketplace
    15 hours ago
    26:21
  • How We Survive
    17 hours ago
    25:04
  • This Is Uncomfortable
    21 hours ago
    26:12
  • Marketplace Morning Report
    a day ago
    7:01
  • Marketplace Tech
    a day ago
    10:55
  • Million Bazillion
    2 days ago
    7:35
  • Financially Inclined
    3 months ago
    12:30
  • The Uncertain Hour
    4 months ago
    22:50
  • Corner Office from Marketplace
    5 years ago
    20:58