True, it is possible that two or more federal agencies can engage in a “competition in laxity” -- but I worry considerably more about the possibility that a single federal regulator would become inevitably rigid and insensitive to the needs of the marketplace.
So long as the existence of a federal guarantee of deposits and other elements of the safety net call for federal regulation of banks, such regulation should entail a choice of federal regulator in order to ensure the critical competitiveness of our banks.