Professor Edward Kane:

There are some guards. One is to limit the ability of regulators to take a job in the industry for so many years or to limit what kind of job or contacts they can have with their agencies over the years where they may have some cosy relationships, but none of that will be perfect. What one really must do is get into the incentives system and see that taxpayers deserve to be represented in the governance of the firm and the dividend payment of the firm. Many of these crises would have been much less if we had just put freezes on dividends early. There are things we can do if we understand that taxpayers have been drawn into the capital structures of these firms though the providing of equity capital, but we do not acknowledge that in our company law.