Taken together, these speeches seem to be calling for regulatory supervisors to have greater authority with less responsibility. It is a call for greater power yet an attempt to pre-avoid blame in the event of market failure since "the ultimate responsibility for risk identification and risk management remains with the supervised institution." It is easy to be left with the impression that the regulators are not inclined toward self-criticism. In this regard, the worst that Mr. Hoenig can…

As Professor Pirrong observed in his recent blog post (see Related News), the Dodd-Frank clearing mandate has likely accelerated the merger of exchanges and clearing corporations. In an attempted framework to eliminate the possibility of institutions that are "too big to fail," Dodd-Frank instead has created a new kind of monopoly on an even bigger scale.

Did the regulators anticipate this? If they did, then they didn't let on. If they didn't, then perhaps they should…

When it comes to the ways in which fees are calculated, it behooves CTAs and CPOs to check the accuracy of their disclosures.

Chair Massad deserves credit for undoing some of the damage that would have been caused by the prior CFTC Chair's overreach. That said, the faster and more aggressively that Chair Massad can pursue the so-called "fine-tuning" of past mistakes, the better it will be for the economy. On a less positive note, the problems with central clearing are not easily correctable, and the solution will require far more significant action than simply shoring up individual clearinghouses in the event of…