Tweet
"When I was a young person, say, in my late '20s or early '30s, going to closed-door caucuses with congressmen and senators about the structure of impending financial legislation reminds me of Bismark's comment that no one should ever see sausage or legislation made. It is an interesting thing from my vantage point, which is many people on the left doubt what you might call the validity of free markets, and they recommend intervention and regulation. For someone who's seen how the regulatory response is designed and enforced, I'm not as sanguine about the powers of regulation...
"My sense at the time was that I was getting educated, not cynical. But I did say at one point to a reporter when I left and went to New York that I felt that I had observed a lobbyist could undo in one lunch six months of my work. And so in that respect the limitations of the power of legislative staff were evident to me. But in those days (we're now talking about late '80s), I still felt, say, like the lead attorneys at the Federal Reserve and others were primarily the draftsmen of legislation. By the time you get to 2008 and beyond, Dodd-Frank legislation, much of this legislation is drafted by lobbyists and they're--how you say--they're growing their own rules and they're holding fundraisers out the wazoo."
whole interview...
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?...&jumival=11974
"My sense at the time was that I was getting educated, not cynical. But I did say at one point to a reporter when I left and went to New York that I felt that I had observed a lobbyist could undo in one lunch six months of my work. And so in that respect the limitations of the power of legislative staff were evident to me. But in those days (we're now talking about late '80s), I still felt, say, like the lead attorneys at the Federal Reserve and others were primarily the draftsmen of legislation. By the time you get to 2008 and beyond, Dodd-Frank legislation, much of this legislation is drafted by lobbyists and they're--how you say--they're growing their own rules and they're holding fundraisers out the wazoo."
whole interview...
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?...&jumival=11974