Five years on, Dodd-Frank still controversial

It’s been five years since the Dodd-Frank Act became law, with the goal of preventing the chaos of the 2008 economic crisis from happening again.

But the question whether it’s worked is just as polarizing as the law itself was back then. The law affects Wall Street, banks, whistleblowers, consumer protection, and other sectors of the financial industry.

Michael Greenberger, a law professor at the University of Maryland, says there have been flaws in the implementation of the law, but “the dangerous trading, to the extent Dodd-Frank reaches it and controls it, has been substantially mitigated because of the fact that it’s not a dark market anymore.”

In order to mitigate that “dangerous trading” that led to the 2008 market crash, the Securities and Exchange Commission had to write lots of new rules, and the agency isn’t done. Richard Williams of the Mercatus Center says the sheer number of new rules is too big a burden, particularly for banks. He says that makes it harder for banks to lend.

“I don’t think anybody knows precisely what this is going to do to the financial sector,” he says.

The SEC says all those rules are making the financial markets stronger and more resilient.