The emphasis on beefing up oversight without changing the rules of the game isn't exactly change we can believe in.

Following years spent in the compliance department of financial institutions I came to the conclusion that there was something fundamentally wrong with a system that relied on compliance to keep things on track. Too often you spent your time trying to stuff the toothpaste back in the tube.

You cannot rely on dealing with the problems that arise; you need to create greater intrinsic motivations within the system to do things right to start with.

Robert Wiseman at Multinational Monitor's Editor's Blog appears to feel the same way, and regards the Obama administration's new regulatory package as inadequate as a result. It's a good read.