Unaccountable Government in Action:  Capital Markets in the Fed’s Cross-Hairs

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The Dodd-Frank Act created a little known and extraordinarily powerful new coalition of presidential appointees, the Financial Stability Oversight Council, and gave it plenary authority to subject non-bank financial institutions to “prudential supervision” by the Federal Reserve. Financial service companies, including insurance companies and asset managers as well as their products (such as the mutual funds many use to save for retirement), are all on the table.

But is “de-risking” the capital markets sound policy? And at what cost? Will banking-style regulation – including capital requirements – that seeks to promote the safety and soundness of the financial system benefit capital markets and the already heavily regulated companies and products through which investors participate in them? Should Europe really be our model?

Our speakers will put these unprecedented developments into their proper policy and historical perspective.

The Honorable Peter Wallison holds the Arthur Burns Chair in Financial Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and previously served as General Counsel of the Treasury Department (1981-85) and White House Counsel (1986-87) during the Reagan Administration. He also served as a member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. Mr. Wallison has written extensively on this and related issues, testifies frequently before Congress, and is extraordinarily able to shed light on these developments and their implications for the U.S. economy and its capital markets.

The Honorable Paul S. Atkins is Chief Executive Officer of Patomak Global Partners, a financial services regulatory consultancy with offices in Washington and New York. Previously, Mr. Atkins served as a Commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission (2002-08) and later as a member of the Congressional Oversight Panel for TARP (2009-10). Earlier in his career, Mr. Atkins was a senior staffer to two SEC Chairmen, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, and an attorney in New York and Paris. Mr. Atkins frequently writes and speaks about regulatory and capital markets issues.

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