Mary Schapiro and her SEC colleagues haven't won Chuck Jaffe's support for the next round of money market fund regulations. The MarketWatch columnist accuses the regulatory agency of being "so busy trying to solve the last financial crisis that they're not really confronting the next one."

"This isn't 2008. The SEC in January 2010 changed rules, requiring money funds to reduce risk by shortening the maturity of securities in their portfolio while increasing their standards for credit quality, liquidity and transparency," Jaffe writes, adding that yields for money funds are still almost nonexistent. "If the SEC adds additional costs it will make that situation worse, and damaging the money-market industry will only hurt the capital markets."

Peter Crane of Crane Data added his own take on the new reg push.

"Washington is fooling itself in saying 'We're never going to step in again,'" Crane told Jaffe. "What the financial crisis proved is that the Treasury ultimately just has to give its word ... and that should end a crisis in confidence ... Nothing the SEC does is going to change that as the ultimate backstop in any money market crisis situation." 

Edited by: HFD


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