Bank Regs Are Excess Profit Taxes

They're not about preventing failures when things go bad. They're about limiting windfalls when times are good.

U.S. banks have had a great pandemic. Now they’re making more money than ever—and are poised to disburse that windfall to shareholders and employees.

Does that mean that the pre-pandemic regulatory regime was too tight? One might think that, if the banks can come out of Covid with these kinds of results, surely they can handle garden-variety downturns wi…