Regulation runs amok

A 'Discussion Paper' published by the Swiss regulator FINMA on the subject of regulating the marketing of financial products to private clients runs to 132 pages. It is a classic example to the regulatory overkill that threatens the financial service sector, increases costs for the end-investor and - due to its complexity - will hardly achieve its stated goal, the provision of better and cheaper financial products to the retail investor. More and more prescriptive regulation means that ultimately behind each productive worker there will have to be a 'Commissar' (Compliance Officer) and an army of lawyers and assorted busybodies. No action will be taken before they get the Okay from the compliance department. And of course, the compliance department will have to be supervised in turn and so on ad infinitum. Final destination is an economic system that is close to the Stalinism of the old Soviet Union.