Clifford Asness and Aaron Brown write in today's Wall Street Journal on what to expect if the Dodd financial "reform" bill passes:
No financial professional will be able to turn down a "request" for a campaign contribution, and all financial institutions will hire former staffers as advisers or directors. No regulator can afford to antagonize a potential future employer. Regulators themselves must kowtow to Congress, which can use them for under-the-table subsidies to favored groups. None of this is new to politics, of course, but the scale and lack of defined powers are.
