# Would financial regulations at the state or city level do anything

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-financial-regulations-at-the-state-or-city-level-do-anything/659063>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [May 22, 2013, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-financial-regulations-at-the-state-or-city-level-do-anything/659063 "2013-05-22T20:25:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\
**Post date:** [May 22, 2013, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-financial-regulations-at-the-state-or-city-level-do-anything/659063/1 "2013-05-22T20:25:13Z")

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If federal level financial regulations are not effective enough, and the banks are now more fragile than they were before the crisis it is probable we will have another collapse.

Can anything be done at the state level in NY or NC or at the city level in NYC and Charlotte to regulate the financial services industry?

Elliot Spitzer was governor during the buildup, and if he couldn’t do anything I don’t know what power there would be at the state level. But can a governor or attorney general, or even a mayor do anything to regulate financial industries?

FWIW, I don’t know what ‘regulate’ means, but I am under the impression our system is too big to fail (and jail) still, and still has our political system captured.

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**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\
**Post date:** [May 22, 2013, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-financial-regulations-at-the-state-or-city-level-do-anything/659063/2 "2013-05-22T22:32:51Z")

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It’s not like cities and states didn’t try do something before.

[All the Devils are Here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_Devils_Are_Here)  
Page 146

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> Siding with the banks against the states and cities that were trying to stop abusive lending practices, the two federal regulators asserted something called preemption. What this meant, in effect, was that institutions regulated by the OTS or OCC were immune from state or local laws.

Page 148

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> Says Kevin Stein, the associate director of the California Reinvestment Coalition: “Banks said, ‘We don’t have to comply.’ The OCC said, ‘They don’t have to comply.’ The state legislatures said, ‘If we can’t pass a law that regulates federally chartered banks in our state, then we’re not going to regulate state chartered lenders, because then they can’t compete.’ It was a legislative and regulatory race to the bottom.”

So I guess you have to solve the problem of preemption first.