From the BBC:
The government has announced what it describes as one of the biggest overhauls of financial regulation for more than three decades.
It says the package of more than 30 reforms will "cut red tape" and "turbocharge growth". Rules that forced banks to legally separate retail banking from riskier investment operations will be reviewed. Those were introduced after the 2008 financial crisis when some banks faced collapse.
The package of changes, the "Edinburgh Reforms" is being presented as an example of post-Brexit freedom to tailor regulation specifically to the needs and strengths of the UK economy.
However, critics say it risks forgetting the lessons of the financial crisis.
Famous last words. The government is clearly insane. It's like scrapping regular checks on bridges on the basis they haven't collapsed for years. This is all just setting us up for the next financial crisis starting in 2025.
If you start at the ideal kind of economy, with free and competing markets, you can either veer to the left: over-regulation, nationalisation, socialism, communism... and end up with a small handful of people living in luxury at the expense of the impoverished masses.
Or you can veer to the right: de-regulation, privatisation of national wealth, corporatism, crony-capitalism, allowing rent-seekers to run the show... and end up with a small handful of people living in luxury at the expense of the impoverished masses.
There's no real difference, is there? Russia pivoted from the Communist extreme to the crony-capitalist extreme in the 1990s, with the same people doing the controlling and exploiting.
Debate Magazine
