A Reader writes in …
From the WashPost homepage comes a vivid illustration of the opportunities and challenges facing the new administration:
“Adviser’s Plan Would Alter Financial System: A top Obama adviser proposes measures that would dramatically expand government control over the free market in the United States.”
The article itself details a report from a Group of 30 panel chaired by Paul Volcker, not from the Transition. It does, indeed, call for a thorough regulatory overhaul, including limiting the size of banks so they won’t be too big to fail. But the entire point of the report is that we presently do not have a functioning free market. Insisting upon transparency, accountability, and oversight is the necessary precondition for restoring the health of the free market.
I expect this kind of distortion from AEI and Cato. But the panicked press reaction to this proposal helps explain why Obama seems so intent on retaining the capacity to communicate directly with the public. Even with the financial world teetering on the brink, the prospect of Change is deeply frightening to its denizens. This is going to get interesting.
