(click to enlarge, source: wsj)

According to NY Times, the Bush administration is proposing the broadest overhaul of Wall Street regulation since the Great Depression.

The plan hands vast new authority to the Federal Reserve…The proposals would, for the first time, create a set of federal regulators with authority over all players in the financial system, be they banks, insurance companies or other entities like hedge funds and private equity funds, which now operate virtually without regulation. But that authority would be limited…

(click to enlarge, author’s own calculation)

Europe is China’s No. 1 trading partner. It seems that they did not get the deal the US is getting. Are we going to see more appreciation pressure of CNY/Euro in the future? Or Europe, a union of rough a dozen countries, is fundamentally weaker than the U.S. when it comes to negotiation power?

NY Times reports main street consumers start to feel the pinch.

Are we soon to see more regulations on banks, especially on investment banks? Paul Krugman thinks no regulation on "shandow banking system" is the reason why we got here today.  He compared today's financial crisis with the Great Depression in 1930s. But aren't those regulated banks also in trouble?  Can regulation solve the problem?

Paul Volcker interview (03/18/08) on Charlie Rose.
(what happened to Charlie’s eye?)

(click above picture to play, about 30 mins)