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Why Not Restore Glass-Steagall?
...Moss and others appear to blame the financial crisis on the repeal of Glass-Steagall. Yet most of them do not argue for restoring Glass-Steagall. No one says that restoring the separation between commercial banking and investment banking would prevent future crises. Hardly anyone even suggests that it would be helpful.

People are not specifically arguing that Glass-Steagall was wonderful regulation. Instead, they are waving around Glass-Steagall in order to make a vague, generic claim that regulation works and deregulation fails....

...Moss mostly offers a thermostat theory of financial regulation. Financial regulation is a thermostat, which you can set on "more" or "less." As long as you turn it toward "more," everything will be fine. Never mind what actually caused the crisis (regulatory capital arbitrage) and what was actually irrelevant to the crisis (the erosion of competitive boundaries between commercial and investment banking). Just adjust the regulatory thermostat to "more."