The Secret Goldman Sachs Tapes
This stuff is fairly innocuous if that's all Lewis can come up with after reviewing 46 hours of tapes. "I'm not going to comment until I know what my boss thinks?" That's something nearly every underling has or will say at some point.<p>The bigger issue is that being a regulator in the U.S. is a shitty job. Half the country thinks we shouldn't even have regulators, and the other half blames regulators for not understanding what they're doing out of one side of their mouth while condemning anyone with industry experience who does know out of the other side. So no surprise that the regulators are deferential to the banks. At any given time they're one presidential election away from losing what little leverage they have.<p>Our regulatory system is the result of a clash of cultural values. One one hand we aren't comfortable with doing away with regulation. To the contrary, we demand it. On the other hand we think of regulatory bodies as leeching off "value-creating businesses" and condemn anyone who undertakes government service. Unsurprisingly, we get regulatory bodies that try not to rock the boat.