Sunday, February 08, 2009

Economists to Obama: Get the Government out of the Banking Business


On the eve of Barack Obama's inauguration as president of the United States, Wharton finance professor Richard J. Herring discussed with Knowledge@Wharton some of the advice offered to the new chief executive by the Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee, a group of economists, former regulators and lawyers, of which Herring is a co-chair. In an open letter to Obama, the committee suggested that the government should quickly extract itself from the investments it made to rescue the financial system and devise a new regulatory framework for preventing future crises. Herring also assessed the deepening woes at Citigroup.

Knowledge@Wharton: Professor Herring, thank you for joining us today. Perhaps you could tell us just in a few short sentences what the Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee is and what it does.

Richard J. Herring: It's a group of economists, former regulators and lawyers who meet quarterly in Washington to take a look at recent regulatory initiatives, or initiatives that ought to take place, and write press statements. Usually, we'll have interviews that are strictly off the record with policy makers. And then we will issue press releases on the following [day at] noon.

See full Article.