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	Name:	MartiniMan -
	Subject:	Banks need regulation-not
	Date:	1/22/2010 9:35:15 AM

I have a different view about the need for more regulation. Despite the false statements about deregulation, the banking industry is by far the most regulated private industry in this country bar none. I defy anyone to identify another industry that is so influenced and controlled by the government. For example, I can only point to the Federal Reserve as exhibit 1. Unlike any other business I know, banks are required by the government to keep a certain amount of their cash on hand. Every aspect of their business is heavily regulated by the state and federal government. The cause of the financial crisis was government distortion of the market and not by the banking industry, and not by banks broadening their business offering.

That is not to say there weren't cases of predatory lending, focus of too much risk in certain areas (i.e., real estate in Florida or Nevada) or other bad business decisions. But the markets correct for these bad decisions, unless the government steps in and bails them out of the consequences, thereby perpetuating the willingness to make the bad decisions. As for lending, I believe in personal responsibility and at the end of the day no one was holding a gun to a person's head forcing them to enter into a loan that they could not repay or put tens of thousands of dollars on a credit card.

There may be need for some form of regulatory reform but more regulation and more government intervention is not the answer to the problem, it is the problem. And no I am not advocating complete deregulation, I am advocating sensible regulatory reform that doesn't turn the banking industry into an arm of the government via regulatory fiat.