SOME MOTU DISAGREE WITH UNCLE ALAN

(You may recall that Alan Greenspan still believes in the Free Market Fairy so he's against more regulation.)

They just came out with a report offering 60 proposals to prevent another Big ShitPile:

Debt Market Fix? Try 60
Wall Street Group
Seeks Tougher Rules
After Credit Woes
By JON HILSENRATH and SERENA NG
August 7, 2008; Page C3

An industry group representing Wall Street's biggest banks proposed a wide-ranging set of revisions to make debt markets and financial institutions more resilient in the wake of the yearlong credit turmoil.

The group, co-chaired by Gerald Corrigan, a Goldman Sachs managing director and former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, laid out 60 proposals, including that banks be forced to account for more assets on their balance sheets, face tougher standards for selling complex debt instruments, accelerate overhauls of the credit-default-swap market, and implement tougher standards for managing their own risk and liquidity. (Read the complete report.)

According to the WSJ blog Real Time Economics, Corrigan believes these proposals won't need much in the way of new regulations:

...there should be no bureaucratic holdup for the proposals. Most of the steps recommended in the report can be implemented under the terms of the existing regulatory structure, Corrigan said.

According to the NYT, there is some grumbling from other MOTU because they may face COMPETITION in an area where they've been used to a relatively free hand:

Now Mr. Corrigan is pushing for the industry to establish a central clearinghouse for derivatives. The clearing project is supported by the Federal Reserve, but many Wall Street firms are concerned that such a move could open their lucrative over-the-counter trading operations to competition from exchange companies.