Dodd-Frank is More Right than Wrong

The excerpt below is from a U.S. News and World Report Debate Club forum on whether or not the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act should be repealed. The rest of the piece can be found at the U.S. News & World Report website.

We should not repeal Dodd-Frank. Although far from perfect, it goes a long way towards fixing many of the problems revealed by the severe financial crisis from which we are still recovering. Whatever the exact causes of the crisis, which are still a matter of argument, it vividly revealed a multitude of flaws in how the financial system had been regulated. Dodd Frank fixes many of those problems and others are being tackled through international agreements like the so-called “Basel III” accord, which substantially increases the safety margins of capital and liquidity that banks must hold. Taken together, the reforms mean that banks will be operating with much greater margins for error, the massive business of derivatives will be safer and more transparent, regulators will have considerably clearer knowledge of the risks in the system, securitizations will be saner, and the system as a whole will be safer in many other ways.