George Soros Quotes

I think we're fooling ourselves if we think that regulators are going to be able to outsmart the bankers. So, the task of designing regulatory reform is trying to make more or less foolproof regulation and that's one of the advantages of the systemic category.

There is certainly a role for regulation, but regulation should always take into account the impact that it has on markets, a balance that must be constantly weighed.

We have parts of our system which are overwhelmed by regulation. It wasn't the absence of regulation that was the problem. It was despite the presence of regulation you got huge risks built up.

There is a very real danger that financial regulation will become a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Is regulation per se bad? Is better regulation bad? I think better regulation is good for the business community, and I think that's something we should get together on.

Legislation must be passed which undoes the damage caused by excessive de-regulation. That means reinstalling the regulatory firewalls that were ripped down in 1999.

Banking, I would argue, is the most heavily regulated industry in the world. Regulations don't solve things. Supervision solves things.

You can't, in a government agency, regulate everything that moves ... you can't regulate everything ... you must strike a balance.

Strong banks want strong regulation.

The regulators can’t do it. These institutions are just too large and complex.

Fannie Mae may have conformed to the rules but the rules didn’t conform to reality. A major bank or financial institution could meet every single regulatory requirement yet still be at the risk of collapse.

… attempting to supervise the financial sector is a fool’s errand

I support adjustments designed to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of regulation without sacrificing safety and soundness or undermining macroprudential goals.

What a nightmare it would be if we individually had to criminalise every single abuse of every single commodity, market or financial product. There are thousands of these and new ones being invented every day. Such an approach would have disastrous implications for regulation and policy-making. Any slide towards it must be resisted.

Regulation of derivatives transactions that are privately negotiated by professionals is unnecessary.

There's nothing magic about regulations, too much is bad, too little is bad.

Repealing rules therefore requires federal agencies to explain why the factual and scientific bases for the predicted benefits of their rules were wrong or no longer adequate to justify those rules.

Dodd-Frank greatly expanded the regulatory reach of the Federal Reserve. It did not, however, examine whether it was correctly structured to account for these new and expansive powers. Therefore, the Committee will be examining the appropriateness of the Fed's current structure in a post Dodd-Frank world.

The basic architecture of Dodd-Frank makes sense. At the same time, as a number of regulators and legislators have observed, the act was a complex effort that produced thousands of pages of rules.

We're charged by Congress with regulating financial institutions. We take that mission seriously. We are tough supervisors and regulators.

It's very important that the government is close to the business community and that we understand their concerns. But at some point, the government needs to be a government.

As presidents from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama have recognized, the real question is whether regulations, whether new or old, are justified. That requires a careful analysis of their costs and their benefits.

I believe that we have to have a new regulatory regime for our financial system.

A regulator is supposed to create and enforce a standard.

I frankly think we in the financial service world believe we need appropriate kinds of regulations. No question about that. But when something like Dodd-Frank has been created, sort of in the mystery of night, it is a huge document. It's vast. It weighs about 10 pounds when I carry it around.