Implode-o-Meter News - Financial Crisis, Over and Already Forgotten

Ms. Bair says she thinks the attacks on FSOC are intended to intimidate it, both from designating any more firms as systemically important and from acting again on money market funds if the S.E.C., as expected, fails to pass any meaningful regulation. She sees the very existence of such funds as a regulatory failure, arguing that they should either have floating net asset values, as normal mutual funds do, or be required to maintain reserves, as banks are.
Money market funds often lend money to financial institutions, and a number of them were damaged when Lehman Brothers failed in 2008. Some fund sponsors stepped in to bail out their funds, fearing damage to reputations, but one did not.

The Reserve Fund "broke the buck," meaning investors could not withdraw their money without losses. The money market fund industry was saved from a run by the prompt action of the Treasury Department, which guaranteed its assets.

Congress later barred regulators from ever mounting a similar bailout.

Now, amnesia, or perhaps we should call it, as Ms. Bair does, "revisionist history," has persuaded some people that there is no threat of anything similar happening.

Relevant:

Financial Crisis, Over and Already Forgotten