by Calculated Risk on 2/28/2010 11:59:00 PM

First from Paul Krugman: Financial Reform Endgame

A weak financial reform ... wouldn’t be tested until the next big crisis. All it would do is create a false sense of security and a fig leaf for politicians opposed to any serious action — then fail in the clinch.

And from Sewell Chan at the NY Times: In Senate, a Renewed Effort to Reach a Consensus on Financial Regulation

As part of a regulatory overhaul adopted in December, the House voted to create a freestanding Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Since then, the financial services industry has been largely unified in trying to reduce the proposed agency’s independence, as well as the scope of its powers.
...
Rather than a stand-alone agency, Mr. Dodd proposed [documented in a two-page summary ... which was provided to reporters on Friday without Mr. Dodd’s permission] creating a Bureau of Financial Protection within the Treasury Department.
...
Lauren K. Saunders, a lawyer at the National Consumer Law Center, said advocates feared that in the effort to reach a compromise, the agency’s power would be so watered down as to be ineffectual. “We’re completely outgunned,” she said.

Senator Dodd's new proposal sounds like one that "would fail in the clinch".