Friday, March 13, 2009

G-20 Market Rescue vs. Reform


The G-20 may kick the financial system reform can down the road. Instead they will focus on saving drowning firms. Bloomberg reported:


“The Europeans want to use this as a forum to discuss global coordination of regulation, and the Americans are more interested in global coordination of firefighting,” said Randal Quarles, a former U.S. Treasury undersecretary and now a managing director at the Carlyle Group in Washington.

Uncle Sam usually gets his way, thus global regulation can wait. Funny. two Carlyle counterparts lead studies regarding regulatory reform. Cofounder David Rubenstein heads a World Economic Council effort, while Senior Adviser Arthur Levitt heads an industry reform study. How might private equity underwriters fare in a new regulatory framework? Quite well, I imagine. Who will watch our back?