New piece up at Fox News: Obama's Financial 'Reform' Doesn't Fix Anything

My new piece starts this way:

The 2,319 page financial regulation bill that just passed Congress is filled with vague, complicated language.

Some language will weaken our financial system and make it less efficient.

Other language appears to mandate racial and gender employment quotas in dozens of Federal agencies.

In the name of making sure that there is not another financial crisis, the bill does nothing to address what caused the mortgage problems created by government regulations that forced banks to make risky loans that they didn't want to make.

It does nothing to rein in the $400 billion in losses created by government entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

What Democrats don't understand is how everyone from farmers to small and large companies use derivatives to decrease their risks. When a farmer plants his crops in the spring he has to worry about what the price of his crops will be when they are harvested in the fall. If prices plummet before the harvest occurs, farmers face real financial peril. So farmers sell a portion of those crops even before they plant them. They know what price they will get and they greatly reduce their risk. That is what a derivative is. . . .