Academic

It's amazing that there's a Dodd-Frank book already in print, it's cheering (for those of us Philadelphians, at least) that it has been done by Penn's David Skeel.  I'm willing to predict that The New Financial Deal will be a part of many a financial regulation syllabus in the spring.  I'll have more to say about the book next week, but here are three takeaways that may whet your interest:

• Skeel worries that Dodd-Frank both exemplifies and is consistent with a corporatist turn in financial regulation - that is, rather than disciplining banks like we do normal corporations, DF subjects them to the sort of special treatment that has, so far, resulted in both quiet and explicit bailouts.
• He thinks Elizabeth Warren and consumer protection for financial instruments are perhaps the best parts of the new regime.
• You might think of the book as the exemplar of the Tory, or perhaps Jacksonian, perspective on finance - the vision is about how to make banks modest, though critical, contributors to prosperity, rather than the epitome of it - and that means treating banks like any other consumer oriented business.  It's an entirely plausible approach.