Dallas billionaire Sam Wyly (pictured) is out with an expanded paperback edition of his memoir, 1,000 Dollars and an Idea. In it, the successful entrepreneur (Michaels Stores, Green Mountain Energy, etc.) has penned a new chapter about the “Great Crash of 2008,” then argues for a tax on carbon consumption and against excessive government regulation of the financial markets, because “over-regulation in free markets is dangerous.” He goes on:
Having said that, there are two ways the government can use regulation to help. The first is simply to require that the truth be told. Regarding derivatives and securitization and all this alphabet soup of complicated assets, the government should require disclosure. … The second regulatory aid that can be provided by government is to give the [Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.] the power to liquidate bank holding companies. For banks, the FDIC has the power to merge insolvent banks into solvent ones. All it needs today is the same power to deal with bank holding companies. … If given [that power], the FDIC could clean up the mess that the bank holding companies have created with their mountains of debt in probably a few months.
