The fightback begins

CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton courageously challenges rogue cop Vic Mackey Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's plan. First he lauds the success of the CFTC regime:

Since we began using the more flexible principles-based regulatory regime, the worldwide derivatives sector has increased two-fold. But in the US, it has more than tripled.

Wow, what better measure of regulatory success could you find than volumes traded? Forget financial stability, forget public protection, just feel the volume. But I digress. Back to Bart:

It is my firm belief that merging financial regulatory agencies at this time could result in an unmitigated disaster given the vast differences in their diverse and often conflicting regulatory systems.

Ah. That kind of response might be a bit of an issue for Hank. But don't worry. The FT reports that Paulson

conceded on Monday that it could take “many years” to overhaul the US system of financial regulation.

Further trouble comes later in the same article:

In a sign of the difficulties that the Bush administration could face in Congress, Chris Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, called the Treasury plan a “wild pitch . . . not even close”.

If this was Hamlet, we would only have got as far as Polonius in Act I, Scene III:

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend