Cox and the SEC

Washington is humming with the buzz that Chairman Cox of the SEC was left out of the Bear Stearns buyout planning.  Now comes news that a "formal agreement" between the Fed and the SEC will, in essence, cede some of the SEC's enforcement power over investment banks to the Fed.  What is clear about all this is the need for new regulatory legislation crafted by Congress.  Paulson has proposed a package but it has no chance given we are in an election year in which the Republican administrators will be thrown out and the Democrats moved in.