Bank Panics and the Next 30 Years

The end of an essay by David Warsh:

... Many regulators and bankers contend that the thousand-page Dodd Frank Act complicated the task of a future panic rescue by compromising the independence of the Fed. Next time the Treasury Secretary will be required to sign off on emergency lending.

Bank Regulators?  Some economists, including Gorton, worry that by focusing on its new “liquidity coverage ratio” the Bank for International Settlements, by now the chief regulator of global banking, will have rendered the international system more fragile rather than less by immobilizing collateral.

Bankers?  You know that the young ones among them are already looking for the Next New Thing.

Meanwhile, critics left and right in the US Congress are seeking legislation that would curb the power of the Fed to respond to future crises.

So there is plenty to worry about in the years ahead. Based on the experience of 2008, when a disastrous meltdown was avoided, there is also reason to hope that central bankers will once again cope. Remember, though, as the Duke of Wellington said of the Battle of Waterloo, it was a close-run thing.

Update: See Brad Delong's reply.