Chainsmoking . . . with Emphysema

Sizing Up Financial Reform To Date*

No, I haven't been commenting on the Lehman Bros. bankruptcy expose, which has been a big deal in the financial blogosphere the last week or so.

Having declined to read the entire 2,000-plus page study, my quick take is that everything people suspected that Lehman did, it actually did -- only worse.

(Make, that people away from Wall Street, where people knew for fact what Lehman was doing, i.e., quarter-end financial engineering, hiding debt, and pervasive Enron-like accounting generally).

Beyond the particulars of Lehman, though, what's my take on financial reform generally, up to and including the (lame) legislation just introduced by lameduck Christopher Dodd?

The newly diagnosed emphysema patient has resumed (chain)smoking.

Except that: a) the patient never really stopped smoking; and b) given all the hacking the last few years, the diagnosis wasn't exactly a surprise.

No, the recovery won't be easy, but an obvious first start would seem to be to switch doctors!!

*That's actually a trick headline; 18 months after the crash, there hasn't been any perceptible financial reform.