Academic

Gridlock

By Gordon Smith, Christine, Hurt, Vic Fleischer, Fred Tung, Lisa Fairfax, David Zaring

The old saw is that markets like gridlock in Washington.  My own view is that gridlock makes executives try to do things through agencies that they cannot do through Congress.  Because Dodd-Frank has to be implemented (and I suppose environmentalists are suspecting that EPA might do something on cap and trade), it isn't clear to me that gridlock will exactly result in an end to novel regulation of overseen industries.  If I'm right, then the implementation of Dodd-Frank will be one of the few things that the administration will think it can control.  My own guess is that the midterm elections, in the most base, most political sense, makes Elizabeth Warren and the Basel Committee winners and the SEC a loser.  This Politico story tips Carol Browner to be a big player, perhaps because of those cab and trade rumors.  But we claim no political expertise on the blog, so I invite our readers to speculate on the winners and losers of the midterms. 

Full post as published by Conglomerate on November 03, 2010 (boomark / email).