Financial Reform and Straw Cattle (er, Men)

WSJ: ‘Financial Reform Hurts Farmers’

“Finance Overhaul Casts Long Shadow on the Plains”

—Headline, The Wall Street Journal (7/14/2010)

So, according to The Wall Street Journal, regulating derivatives — as the financial reform bill before Congress weakly proposes to do — will in fact hurt Midwestern farmers.

That’s because it will cost them more to hedge the sale of their crops, livestock, etc.

There are only two problems with that argument:

One. It’s far from clear that regulating derivatives will make them more expensive.

In fact, buried in the Journal’s own article are quotes from several experts who argue that better regulation and more transparent trading will make derivatives less expensive.

Two. The cost of not regulating derivatives (just so far) has come to trillions in new federal debt, a crashed financial system, and a nasty, ongoing recession.

Not exactly good for farmers — or anyone else!

P.S.: my alternative — and more correct — headline: ‘Finance Overhaul Lifts Long Shadow Over the Plains.’