Friday, May 15, 2009

Derivatives Oversight- It's About Time

Earlier this week, Treasury Secretary Geithner announced plans to form an exchange on which derivatives will be traded. I wrote about this, in an indirect manner, over a year ago, in this post.

It's way, way past time for the federal government to have announced this initiative.

In fact, from the day Bear Stearns became the subject of bankruptcy speculation, early in the week of March, 2008, at the end of which it closed, this should have been Job One at Treasury and the Fed.

Oh, right. Geithner was at the New York Fed. His fingerprints are all over the Bear Stearns and AIG rescues.

Why has it taken 16 months simply to announce that a derivatives exchange will be created? That should have occurred by the end of March of last year. So that, by now, it might actually be in the early stages of operation.

This sort of inaction and delay is yet another reason why one should carefully consider the wisdom of so much federal involvement in our economy now, and as proposed, for auto makers and health care, in the future.

No comments: