Expert consensus reports codify what banks can get away with rather than genuine reform

Evidence

If there was a consensus inscribed in the Squam Lake documents, it was less representative of the full economics profession than it was more intently slanted toward codification of the minimum that the banking sector could get away with in the tense political aftermath of the debacle of the crisis, rather than any serious attempt to rethink the financial sector from the ground up. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 539

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A durable analytical point: expert-panel ‘consensus’ documents in the crisis era functioned as minimum-viable concessions for the banking sector, which reframes what post-2008 reform actually was.
• XREF: connects to: Libor is a benchmark computed from what banks merely report — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 1341; Bank executives reframed regulatory evasion and mass harm as mere innocent mistakes — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1593; Regulatory capital rules redefine banks as investor vehicles rather than funding distributors — Ève Chiapello, Financialisation of Valuation, 64 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Regulatory capital rules redefine banks as investor vehicles rather than funding distributors #exemplifies (0.85) — Ève Chiapello, Financialisation of Valuation, 64
• Bank executives reframed regulatory evasion and mass harm as mere innocent mistakes #expands (0.82) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1593
• Banks resisted capital requirements that would restore consequential responsibility for losses #expands (0.80)
• Financial reform legislation was converted into an effort to restrain regulators #corroborates (0.78)
• Basel regulations displaced bankers’ practical credit judgment with statistical risk models #exemplifies (0.78) — Ève Chiapello, Financialisation of Valuation, 63
• Structured reports can layer institutional position over scholarly dissent. #expands (0.72) — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 46