How do we get better regulations with the same not-accountable regulators?

Sir Frank Partnoy holds that “It is ironic that credit rating agencies still retain such power. They were a significant cause of the crisis. They helped fire the fatal bullet by giving unreasonably high credit ratings to ´super senior´ tranches of subprime mortgage-backed collateralised debt obligations. It is astonishing that their views would matter to anyone at this late date. Yet government regulations continue to rely on ratings.”, “Prepare to bury the fatally wounded big banks” January 19.

Indeed it is ironic, even outright disgraceful, and the only explanation for it must be found in the total lack of accountability of the financial regulators. These regulators are now conveniently shielding themselves behind all those calls for more regulations, and which become so hard to explain if one is forced to accept the fact that there is such thing as bad regulators.