It’s not the principle of financial regulation that can be in dispute, but the practice. By and large, regulation has been pretty good for bankers. Among other things, they need protection from each other. Without some form of regulation – and weak regulators to carry the can when things go awry – they would be unable to function at all.
In the 1950s and 1960s, higher levels of financial regulation accompanied relatively rapid increases in general prosperity, and almost no financial crises. Banks did as well out of that as anyone else.
