America Needs Effective Regulation

The bad name given to corporate oversight, i.e. government regulation, deligitimizes its role in society and makes ready financial crises; among other things, regulators deserve more pay. “The obvious problems of graft and the revolving door between government and industry were really symptoms of a more fundamental pathology: regulation itself became delegitimatized, seen as little more than the tool of Washington busybodies,” says The New Yorker. “Given that we still spend tens of billions of dollars on regulation every year, it may seem odd that attitudes can matter this much. But the history of regulation both here and abroad suggests that how we think about regulators, and how they think of themselves, has a profound impact on the work they do.”