Someone needs to teach Peter Wallison the difference between elitism and meritocracy because he seems to have some trouble with the concepts in his op-ed today. He argues that a government agency is elitist because they would require potential consumers of complex financial instruments to take a quiz (or “questionnaire”) first. However, the last time I checked, passing a quiz on finance only required knowledge, perhaps via a hobby in stocks, not a Harvard MBA. In fact, Wallison’s own elitism is on display when he claims that only the “educated” would be able to pass the quiz (in contrast to “ordinary Americans” who would not).
Plus, if the point of run-of-the-mill disclosure laws (which Wallison favors) is to make sure that consumers know what they are buying; thus, optimizing public policy to ensure that consumers actually do know what they are buying is a good thing.