Bankers have also been questionable ethically

This will be taken three years since the beginning of the recession, the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the US and Europe finally decide to reform their financial regulations.

Perhaps should we congratulate us It is now accepted that the crisis is the consequence of excessive deregulation of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan thirty years ago.

But this victory was a bitter taste. Most makers of the mistakes of the Federal Reserve to the US Treasury, the Bank of England, the European Commission, the ECB and private banks, did not recognize their own responsibilities.

Can be trusted to regulatory authorities Without ambiguity: not! What should be: it is still harden their regulatory framework.

Which leads to another question: who, therefore, can be trusted For complex economic issues, this confidence was given the hands banks and regulators which often come themselves, markets. Even if the events of recent years have shown that banks can earn billions while jeopardizing the economy and their own financial solidités.

Bankers have also been "questionable ethically." A court will determine whether the conduct of Goldman Sachs - bet on financial products that the Bank had created itself - is illegal. But public opinion has already clearly made its verdict on that conduct.

But as always, the "Devil lurks in the details", and the lobbies of the financial sector have worked with force to ensure that the details of the new regulations are working in the interests of their employers.

Yet the analysis criteria are clear: the new Act should restrict practices that compromise the whole of the world economy, and redirect the financial system to its trades: manage risks, allocate capital, loans primarily to small and medium-sized enterprises, and develop an effective payment system.

While we offer a toast. Under the terms of legislative discussions in the United States, a form of financial product safety commission will be created; most derivatives transactions will be on regulated markets and will pass by and clearing houses. In addition, it is likely that the bank commissions on flows - this hidden tax that does that fill the coffers of the banks - will be reduced.

But the likely failures are also worthy d ' interest: the problem of the banks too big to fail has worsened since the start of the crisis. Last breakup, the US Government has hesitated, did not use the powers it holds and was refloated without need to shareholders and the holders of bonds - all of this because he feared an economic drama.

And it is not surprising that the big banks are managed to prevent some essential reforms. What was a surprise in the Bill of the US Senate was the device to prohibit entities guaranteed by the Government to accept derivatives risk. Such subscriptions guaranteed by the Government distorts the market by giving the banks a competitive advantage, not necessarily because they are better, but because they are "too big to fail".

The defence of the "too big to fail" banks Fed is indicative of the influence of these institutions on the US Central Bank. The legislation was not intended to prohibit derivatives, but only to prohibit the implicit Government guarantees, guarantees funded by taxpayers (remember the bailout of AIG in $ 180 billion) - and which are not natural or inevitable credit by-products.

There are different ways to limit the excesses of the big banks. An enhanced version of the so-called Volcker rule (designed to require banks receiving public financial support to return to their mission first credit) might work. But the US Government would watch of negligence if he left things in their current state.

The Senate Bill on financial derivatives is a good litmus test: the Obama Government and the Fed, in opposing such prohibitions, are clearly aligned with major banks. If effective restrictions on transactions of banks receiving public support products survive in the final version of the Bill, the general interest can really take the top on the special interests and democratic forces in the lobbies.

But if, as most experts seem to think, these restrictions are removed, it will be a sad day for democracy - and one day darker still for financial reform worthy of the name.