By Cydney Posner

An article in the WSJ today is critical of the role (or lack thereof) of SEC Chairman Christopher Cox in the recent Bear Stearns crisis. The article suggests that the "Bear Stearns meltdown has fueled calls to reorganize U.S. financial regulation, just as a proposal was published to eliminate the SEC and shift responsibility for Wall Street to the Fed." The reference is to the Paulson proposal for a regulatory overhaul, which would place the Fed in charge of market stability issues and called for the SEC to be merged with the FTC, a move that many viewed as a potential death knell for the SEC. The proposed overhaul, introduced in March of this year, would require legislative action and, not surprisingly, thus far has languished. The second article below from the WSJ reports on an impending accord between the Fed and the SEC designed to fill gaps in regulatory oversight and to increase cooperation and information-sharing between the Fed and the SEC.

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