Thought Leadership: Feb. 7 to 14, 2012 - SmartBrief

All Articles Finance Modern Money Thought Leadership: Feb. 7 to 14, 2012

Thought Leadership: Feb. 7 to 14, 2012

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Modern Money

A collection of opinion and analysis pieces from the past week …

The Wall Street Journal weighs in — with a full dose of sarcasm — on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s move to reform the money market mutual fund industry: “Alert the videographers at National Geographic. A rare species has been sighted inhabiting the monuments of Washington, D.C. It appears that a federal financial regulator is about to propose taxpayer-friendly reform despite fierce industry lobbying.”

Steven Rattner writes in the Financial Times that talk of “capitalism in crisis” should really focus on regulatory failings: “So we must press on with fixing capitalism. My vote is that we devote equal attention to the public sector apparatus as to business.”

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, details in Politico the “Penny Plan” legislation she co-sponsored: “The Penny Plan is not based on any political ideology but, rather, on the everyday common sense in every American home. When a family budget must be tightened, the adults figure out how to reduce spending by 1 percent per year.”

Peter Wallison argues in The Wall Street Journal that the Dodd-Frank Act errs in its assertion that interconnectedness played a large role in the financial crisis: “What really weakened so many large financial institutions at the same time, and caused a market panic, was what is known to scholars as a ‘common shock’ — a sudden fall in the value of a widely held asset.”