As noted in this earlier post, the Lord of Regulation latest political grandstanding strategy has been to launch an investigation into the sub-prime lending industry, which provides the valuable service of lending money for home loans at higher interest rates to those who cannot qualify for a conventional mortgage because of insufficient income, lack of assets or credit problems. It’s almost certain that his investigation will damage the industry and thus, reduce the number of people it can profitably serve while scaling back the growth rate in home-ownership. As with many of Mr. Spitzer’s investigations, the real victims are not the ones he pretends to threaten.
Well, apparently the banks are not rolling over for Mr. Spitzer quite as quickly as most of his other targets. This Wall Street Journal ($) article reports that certain of the banks in Mr. Spitzer’s latest probe may decline to cooperate because the primary regulator of national banks is the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and not Mr. Spitzer’s office.
As usual, the Lord of Regulation is not reacting well to competition on his turf of regulating all alleged business corruption. Last week during a speech in Washington, Mr. Spitzer accused the OCC of trying to thwart his lending investigation and, in so doing, noted a telephone call he received from the OCC’s acting comptroller, Julie L. Williams.
That did not sit well with Ms. Williams, who criticized Mr. Spitzer for launcing an investigation into an area that is clearly within the regulatory mandate of the OCC:

“I was surprised and disappointed to see what I had understood to be a personal conversation recounted as part of a speech.”

Given Mr. Spitzer’s general disdain for markets in regulating business, wouldn’t it be delicious irony for one of his investigations to be thwarted by competition within the regulatory marketplace?