Friday's New York Times writes, "Sorting Out the Collapse of Reforms for Money Market Funds". It says, "Four years after the fall of Lehman Brothers, and with a presidential campaign in full swing, everyone can surely agree on one thing: we shouldn’t risk another financial crisis. But after four years of studies, hearings and round tables, the Securities and Exchange Commission late last month abandoned efforts to impose new regulations on money market funds intended to prevent another panic like the one that occurred in 2008 and eliminate the need for a taxpayer bailout of the multitrillion-dollar funds. The S.E.C.'s proposed reforms had the backing of the White House, Treasury officials, the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, a council of academic experts, The Wall Street Journal's conservative editorial page, the former Fed chairman Paul Volcker, former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. -- just about every disinterested party who weighed in on the issue. So it's no wonder many S.E.C. staff members were shocked when three of the five S.E.C. commissioners -- two Republicans and one Democrat -- indicated they wouldn't support the proposals. It was a rare case of a Democratic commissioner breaking ranks with the agency's chairwoman, Mary L. Schapiro, an Obama appointee who is a political independent."
