It is notable that the judge indicated that certain of the contracts — those relating to cultural events — should not benefit from preemption. It is not so clear how the judge weighed the possible illegality of some of the contracts against the legality of others.

Such judge-made law is inherently unstable.

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The SEC should very much focus on minimizing the burdens and costs that central clearing of Treasuries imposes on broker-dealers and banks.  There should be a real concern that the new requirements will discourage intermediate and small firms from participating in the market, decreasing the demand for Treasuries and driving up the interest rate that must be paid on them. 

This is all overdue. It is remarkable, and not in a good way, that the Dodd-Frank Act afforded the CFPB such substantial authority to determine its own funding without congressional approval.

That authority has proven a double-edged sword for an agency that lacks bipartisan support. Under the prior administration, it could spend largely unchecked; under this one, the wolf is at its door.

Senator Warren's criticism of the current CFTC for failing to match the former CFTC's record of winning enforcement awards is misplaced in important ways.  

First, many of the CFTC's enforcement penalties were either in respect of firms' failure to save social media messages (where the penalties were disproportionately large to the true violation) or related to digital assets (where the true failure was the inability of the government to adopt workable statutes and rules), and…