Academic

To continue both our mini-moblog on David Skeel's The New Financial Deal, and our outsourcing efforts on same, here's Ken Anderson over at Volokh with a rave about the book.  Go give it a look, here's a taste:

The deepest normative point Skeel makes, however, is that the regulatory model is one that deliberately undermines the rule of law, particularly the careful establishment of judicial discretion contained with bankruptcy?s special rules of law. Instead, the Dodd-Frank model finds predictable rule-based regulation inapposite to the task at hand and seeks to displace it by deliberate uncertainty, on the one hand, and with government?s political preferences, on the other. The political preferences are analyzed against one of the most provocative but also, to my mind, persuasive turns of Skeel?s argument: to show how the auto bailouts are the template for the future bailout regime of the financial institutions. The short, accessible yet expert discussion of the treatment of senior creditors in the auto bailouts is outstanding ? but most important is how Skeel shows that this, rather than the earlier bailouts in the financial services industry, is the template for future behavior under Dodd-Frank. That, and Fannie and Freddie.