"This is a strong consumer protection law with a lot of teeth. It doesn't cover every area that it could have covered. But, something unusual happened with this law that doesn't normally happen, which is that laws this big that affect the financial industry usually as they make their way through Congress usually become more friendly to the industry as time goes by, as the legislative process works. Usually as the legislators meet with lobbyists, they start to accommodate more to the industry's views.
The reverse process happened in this bill. The longer that Congress considered it, the more time that it spent being deliberated on, the stronger and tougher the bill got, which I believe reflects both Congress' substantive desire to come up with a strong bill as well as the general popular sentiment toward the financial industry."
Dean Baker, Paul Krugman, Robert Reich, Nouriel Roubini, Joseph Stiglitz and other economists who track the economy and who actually in many cases predicted the economic collapse of 2008 all find the reform legislation to be lacking. They probably would disagree with Perlow's conclusion. However, if investment management advisors are finding they have to advise clients in the financial industry to shift their operations significantly in order to comply with the new law, I suppose that's a positive indication that this bill actually does something.
In the end, it depends on what you think the goal of the legislation should have been. If the goal was to ensure another financial collapse never occurs, well, then there's much more that could have been done (like, for example, re-instituting the Glass-Steagall Act). But, if it was to shake up the industry and force entities in the financial industry to follow a new set of procedures and rules that could potentially give more security to consumers in this country, than, as evidenced by Perlow, this bill succeeds.
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