Introduction:

In the first contribution in the third part of the book, Jan Kregel asks: "Is this the Minsky Moment for reform of financial regulation?" Although the financial crisis was soon christened a 'Minsky Moment', Kregel stresses that those who are acquainted with Minsky?s work will recognise that his approach had little to do with 'moments'. The author argues that regulation of the system cannot be effective if it is simply based on measures produced to remedy and reverse the conditions generated by the current 'moment'. Rather, it needs to reformulate the structure of the financial system. The chapter therefore seeks to use a Minsky process analysis, rather than a Minsky moment analysis, to identify two types of structural changes in the system that reforms must seek to redress and reverse. The first is the way the financing of business by means of capital market instruments, in particular structured securitisation, has led to an integration of banking and finance functions. The second is the way these securitised products have reduced the liquidity of the financial system and increased fragility by increasing financial layering. This analysis leads to the conclusion that in a purely privately-owned financial system it may be impossible to fully separate deposit-taking 'commercial' banks from capital market activities if securitisation is maintained as the basic structure used to provide financing to business and to other financial institutions. Nonetheless, it is possible to prevent banks from engaging in particular types of financial activities, in particular proprietary trading and the financing of certain types of arbitrage trading that are not strictly related to the financing of business. The author makes a number of detailed proposals in this direction.