The latest Federal Reserve Open Market Committee ("FOMC") minutes reveal serious consideration of an approach to monetary policy whereby the Fed uses quantitative triggers based on unemployment rates and inflation, as opposed to date-based thresholds, to guide its changes in the federal funds rate.  This is an approach championed by Charles Evans, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.  Under Evans's approach to monetary policy, the Federal Reserve would promise to keep rates at zero until unemployment drops to a certain level unless inflation reaches a particular ceiling. The October 23-24, 2012 minutes show that the Evans approach may be gaining some support among the FOMC, although some participants urged caution.

Paul Volcker, former Federal Reserve Chairman and architect of the Volcker Rule, testified On October 17, 2012 before a joint British Parliamentary Commission on banking standards. He answered questions on the differences between the US and UK banking systems along with questions that focused specifically on America’s recent experiences with regulatory reform. Notably, Volcker criticized the UK's proposed "ring fencing" approach to separating banking firms' retail commercial, deposit-taking banking from their investment banking businesses.  Though Mr. Volcker did say that ring fencing could be quite effective in the short run, the exceptions to the ring fencing rules may doom the concept's effectiveness in the long run.  He drew a parallel with the US's experience with the Glass-Steagall wall of separation between commercial and investment banking. Financial firms began chipping away at the exceptions in Glass-Steagall almost immediately with the creation of subsidiaries and adding more of what was possible for a subsidiary to do in the securities area, eventually all but blunting the effect of Glass-Steagall restrictions.  In his opinion, said Volker, the only truly effective tactic is  institutional separation of retail banking, proprietary trading, and sponsoring of hedge funds.

Despite the legislation's two-part name, "The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act," SEC Chairman Mary L. Schapiro understands financial regulatory reform and consumer protection to be one thing, not two separate goals.  In her October 26, 2012 remarks at George Washington University, Chairman Schapiro states that she sees Dodd-Frank, though still a work in a progress, as founded on some very simple guiding principles that benefit all market participants in the long run and are the basis for both sound regulation and consumer protection.  According to Schapiro, these principles are:

• Markets should be transparent. 
• Regulation should be consistent, without gaps that can be exploited by those who wish to indulge in risky, destabilizing or illegal behavior. 
• Market participants, not taxpayers, should bear the risks of their market activities. 
• And regulators should have the willingness and the tools they need to apply these principles to the day-to-day workings of the financial markets.