Who Is To Blame?

The present financial crisis has prompted widespread recognition of the need for better regulation of the financial system. Even the Republican nominee is currently claiming to be for it (before, he was against it). "Modern History's Greatest Regulatory Failure," says Clinton-era Treasury official Roger Altman. While excessive zeal for deregulation is a prototypically Republican failing, it should be noted the Clinton administration was hardly immune to the zeitgeist, as this example from John Judis of the New Republic reminds us (though David Blake pins the blame on a certain Rand-ite erstwhile Fed "Maestro"). Enough to go around, I suppose.