Nighttime Must-Read: Stanley Fischer: Discusses Big-Bank Political Influence

…directly by legislatures can be imperfect, lamenting the role of Wall Street banks in shaping the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law. ‘I thought that when Dodd-Frank started, that the banks would not succeed in influencing it, having lost all the prestige they lost,’ he told a crowd of several dozen at the Washington, D.C., think tank. ‘Boy, was I wrong.’ His remarks came less than a day after the House passed a spending bill that included a provision, long sought by banks, to scale back a Dodd-Frank requirement.

Mr. Fischer also recalled how… leading the Bank of Israel…. When his central bank colleagues asserted that the institution acted independently of the elected government, his reply was, ‘Yes. And we are two bad decisions away from not being an independent central bank.’

Mr. Fischer said he believes the Financial Stability Board, an organization of regulators set up to coordinate the global response to the financial crisis, has been ‘a great success,’ in part because it has been more inclusive than other international bodies…