In contrast, securities regulation and supervision across Europe are chaotic.

ECONOMIST: European financial regulation

In other markets, such as France, regulators are keen on the split between supervision of securities and banking.

ECONOMIST: European financial regulation

He called on Congress to make the Securities and Exchange Commission's supervision of these so-called consolidated supervised entities mandatory--not voluntary as it now is.

FORBES: Magazine Article

When state securities regulators checked up on brokers under their supervision recently, they opened a window on what investors can expect in terms of worst practices.

FORBES: Bad Things Brokers Do and How to Avoid Them

Although the greatest number of violations (29 percent) were in bookkeeping, the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) found that supervision and sales practices combined amounted to 51 percent of the infractions.

FORBES: Bad Things Brokers Do and How to Avoid Them

The only agencies not represented are the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Office of Thrift Supervision.

FORBES: Financial Reform: The Legislative Logjam

America's Securities and Exchange Commission, whose failures included negligible supervision of investment banks and the Madoff scandal, has set up a new risk division packed with heavyweight thinkers such as Henry Hu, Gregg Berman and Richard Bookstaber.

ECONOMIST: What regulators should do now

And the rise of the vast financial conglomerates into which banks, insurers and securities firms are merging requires the creation of new methods of supervision.

ECONOMIST: Lenses of last resort