The knowledgeable people agree on how to reform finance, so Senate gets it wrong

Senate Financial Bill Misguided, Some Academics Say As Democrats close in on their goal of overhauling the nation’s financial regulations, several prominent experts say that the legislation does not even address the right problems, leaving the financial system vulnerable to another major crisis

so says the NYT today.

Meanwhile, the academic I respect most on Finance, Ross Levine of Brown, has just released an NBER Working Paper called The Autopsy of the Financial System (ungated version), with this abstract:

In this postmortem, I find that the design, implementation, and maintenance of financial policies during the period from 1996 through 2006 were primary causes of the financial system’s demise. The evidence is inconsistent with the view that the collapse of the financial system was caused only by the popping of the housing bubble ("accident") and the herding behavior of financiers rushing to create and market increasingly complex and questionable financial products ("suicide"). Rather, the evidence indicates that regulatory agencies were aware of the growing fragility of the financial system due to their policies and yet chose not to modify those policies, suggesting that "negligent homicide" contributed to the financial system’s collapse.

...which gives yet more reason to worry that current reform bills are getting it wrong.

The concern about getting it wrong was what prompted this blog to argue clumsily against the indiscriminate rage towards malevolent bankers as individuals, and pleaded with lawmakers "not to hit the send button while you're angry." 

This is an extremely serious issue that will affect both the future of the US economy and the cause of global development, so therefore it is unlikely anyone will pay attention.