David Dayen
You can hardly blame Chilton for
being excited to leave the CFTC. The chief regulator for over $300
trillion worth of derivatives trades has seen its operations squeezed by
drastic underfunding, right at the time the Dodd-Frank financial reform
law dropped a whole new set of responsibilities in its lap. While the
rule-writing process is important—and Wall Street lobbyists have fought
hard for exemptions and loopholes on derivatives rules—the lack of
resources has made rules almost irrelevant, since the CFTC simply cannot
enforce them. The agency is being hollowed out from the inside, yet
another way that the financial industry can achieve its goal of gaining
the freedom to ignore the law in pursuit of profit.