According to Project Syndicate, the U.S. Treasury Secretary made a recent statement warning against any rollback of regulations that were put in place following the 2007 financial crisis.

He argued that the United States’ political system “may be taking us in a direction that is very dangerous.” Referring to moves to roll back elements of the new regulatory order established in response to the debacles of 2008-9, he lamented that “everybody wants to go back to the status quo before the great financial crisis.” And he declared that “one cannot understand why grown intelligent people reach the conclusion that you should get rid of all the things you have put in place in the last ten years.”

The article goes on to argue that deregulation is actually not likely because academics and the press are against it. But the statement is not about academics and the press, it is about “the political system”. And who has control over the political system? The finance industry. And of course they want deregulation to boost short-term profits, even though it is not in their long term interests to destroy the world economy they depend on to operate.