Constructive Criticism

Bankstocks.com's Tom Brown took some heat from readers recently for calling President Obama's regulatory reform proposals "asinine" without offering any constructive ideas of his own. So a few days later he responded with a 10-point proposal that struck us as pretty sensible but, sadly, won't get much consideration in the halls of Congress.

Among his ideas: Consolidate banking regulators into a single agency; get rid of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; establish loan-loss reserve levels by loan type; reiterate the primacy of the three key capital ratios; trade credit-default swaps on an exchange and - community bankers will love this one - tax credit unions.