The NYT reports:
The Bush administration on Monday rolled out the broadest overhaul of Wall Street regulation since the Great Depression, presenting a series of proposals that would, for the first time, create a set of federal regulators with authority over all players in the financial system. But the proposal will do almost nothing to regulate the alphabet soup of sophisticated financial products that have fueled the current financial crisis.
The plan will also "not rein in practices that have been linked to the mortgage crisis, like packaging risky loans into securities carrying the highest ratings," but it WILL:
-- Merge the S.E.C. with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates exchange-traded futures for oil, grains, currencies and the like. And the blueprint suggests several areas where the S.E.C. should take a lighter approach to its oversight, including allowing stock exchanges greater leeway to regulate themselves.
-- Extend federal watch to hedge funds and private equity firms, "which have enjoyed freedom from government oversight for years, would finally fall under federal watch. But that oversight would be minimal, enabling the government to do little beyond collecting information until a widescale financial crisis has already occurred."
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