Bait and switch

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, announced a plan for new rules governing federal regulation of financial markets. Given the crisis we’re in that would mean stricter control over the free for all of the past 8 years, right? Apparently not, as Paulson asserts, “I do not believe it is fair or accurate to blame our regulatory structure for the current turmoil.”

So, what are these new regulations really about? As the Times reports,

Mr. Paulson has worried that any effort to substantially tighten regulation could hamper the ability of American markets to compete with foreign rivals — and, in fact, the proposal stemmed from a series of policy discussions that began well before the current tumult that has rocked the nation’s economic underpinnings.

I see. Use a crisis to roll out a plan, devised previously for the sake of corporate profit, to do exactly the opposite of what is required to mitigate said crisis. Sound familiar?