If we think far enough back in history, there are things to learn about regulation and its cycle, just as there would have been – had people been more inclined to look – about the nature of private finance and its cycle. The objective shouldn’t be to suppress finance again to the extent it was for so long in the past.
There would be a cost to the economy in attempting this, and in any event the financiers will be quicker to figure out the avoidance techniques than they used to be.