>t's not picking winners and losers in any sense of that phrase. They are literally punishing the bank for bad behavior

This response repeats the confusion that I just responded to, and tried to correct.

Note that my post does not actually disagree with enforcement of regulatory authority. I also believe that regulators should enforce their regulations. What I pointed to was something different than this.

>If someone breaks the law and you send that person to jail

But that's not a valid comparison. I think this is where you, and others, are confused.

The judicial branch has the authority to enforce laws for breaking crimes. That's what you're comparing this to.

Regulators also have authority to enforce regulatory law.

But what is happening is that a regulator is arguably not using their regulatory authority appropriately. They are, "behind closed doors," and using "unwritten rules" using their authority to punish a company for bad behavior.

The problems here are of transparency, accountability, fairness, competitiveness, and freedom.

I could agree with you if I believed the regulator can do no wrong, but I don't believe that.

Regulators enforce laws too... They are the banking police.

JPMorgan has the resources to fight the regulator in court if it’s exceeded its scope. It happens all the time.

Banking is an industry with regulatory oversight/law, but that does not mean regulatory law or authority are the "banking police."

Although I said in the above post that JP Morgan should be held accountable to regulatory law... So the disagreement here seems to be with something I never said.

You said the judicial branch enforced laws which is incorrect. The judicial branch cannot bring charges. The police do, which may or may not end up in court. Here it was the banking police.

Ok, the judiciary does not technically enforce criminal law, but applies and interprets them. But that is a technicality of language which neither refutes nor reinforces the point I was making: this is not an example of criminal law being enforced. This is a case of regulatory law/oversight.

Should regulators hurt some companies and help others, behind closed doors and for unwritten rules?

That's a different kind of question than should "the courts and police enforce criminal law," which the above user I was responding to was confused about.

That is what the point was.

I can see how reasonable minds can agree on what amount of trust they place in the hands of regulators. Clearly, judging by downvotes, a majority HN believes they should have authority to manipulate markets by picking winners and losers based on determinations of good or bad behavior--and all behind closed doors and outside of written rules. I just simply dont agree with that, as most other economists and Bloomberg news clearly does not, either.

Again... you're injecting some sort of belief that they are manipulating markets and picking winners and losers when there is no such evidence of either of those statements being true including none in the article itself. You're stating that that punishing an organization for fraud is manipulating the market. It seems that you're cloaking that odd argument under the 'behind closed doors' and 'outside of written rules' aspect when they are not connected in any way. One has been created out of whole cloth and the other might actually be pretty valid. You're also hand-wavingly saying 'most other economists' don't agree with that organization policing fraud which multiple others have said (and myself) doesn't seem accurate while not providing any evidence that economists believe that. I'm not sure why you're taking this stance honestly as you're not giving any proof or evidence for any of it.

If you are punishing one organization for bad behavior 1) in secret and 2) without expressly breaking any written rules (the article says they broke "unwritten rules") then this is going beyond enforcement of regulatory oversight.

I dont disagree with the end result, I disagree with the method.

Also, you may disagree, but I dont believe you honestly dont understand what I am saying.