Are Bureaucrats Better Than Congressmen?

The Merkley-Levin amendment was a watered down version of the Volcker rule, which would've prohibited banks from engaging in risky investments with their customers' money. Merkley-Levin got axed last night when the finance reform bill passed the Senate, possibly because appeasing Sen. Jeff Merkely (D-Ore.) and Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) were worth less than the four Republicans that crossed party lines to vote for the bill.

Economics of Contempt is pretty happy about this, as he's written previously on the Merkley-Levin rule.

People often ask why I say that complicated financial regulations can't be written at the statutory level. The reason, sorry to say — which Merkley-Levin demonstrates quite well — is that Congress sucks at writing complicated financial regulations.