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September 19, 2008

One RTC Bridge Too Far

I agree almost entirely with Roger here. While I applaud the idea of the U.S. becoming less ad hoc in its re-engineering of the borked U.S. financial system, we have gone too far in some screwy directions in the current bailout.

In particular, it might have been a political price that had to be paid, but the damage we are doing via this ban on short-selling is less liquid and efficient markets, and, in the end, a less credible financial system. It turns capital markets into a chess as played by my six-year-old, with the rules changing constantly and unpredictably.

We are grown-ups here. If regulators have specific evidence of material short-selling abuses in financial stocks, they should produce it. Otherwise, this is just the political/pandering exercise that it seems.

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