Under the Dodd-Frank financial-reform law, large nonbank firms may be declared systemically important because their failure will cause a systemic breakdown. In effect, this amounts to a government statement that these firms are too big to fail.

As required by the Dodd-Frank Act, the FDIC and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors have issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPR) to implement the "Living Will" requirements of Section 165(d).

The Treasury secretary is currently endorsing a very bad idea.

Longstanding policies that were intended to promote confidence in the independence of regulatory decision-making have now been wiped away by the Dodd-Frank act, which has in effect placed all the financial regulators under the direction of the Treasury secretary.

An idea gaining strength in Washington is to create a systemic risk regulator, compounding the moral hazard of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The Dodd-Frank Act recognizes that investor understandings about endgame rules influence a firm’s appetite for risk and that, higher capital requirements on systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs) cannot by themselves end creditor perceptions that in most circumstances SIFIs are economically, politically, and administratively too difficult to fail and unwind.

For many in the U.S., the worrisome events occurring in Europe recall the 2008 financial crisis. If Greece or some other country should fail to meet its debt obligations, the result could be much like the 2007 mortgage meltdown in the United States. Why is all this happening again?

Despite a $160 million outstanding lifeline, Treasury misrepresentation paints a rosy picture of success.