Law of Financial Services

This book provides a historical perspective and broader understanding of how the laws of business regulation came about,what they are intended to acccomplish, and how they affect the commercial and social structure of the modern world. There is a tendency, in contemporary markets, to conduct business only in terms of what can be observed now. It is often assumed that the sophisticated business methods in use in the fast moving contemporary markets are new inventions, created to meet the rapidly evolving needs of modern financial services. All the possibilities for their use and all of the objects they can accomplish are thought to be on display before us now. The difficulty with this view is that it is wrong, and fosters an ignorance that constricts business grrowth and market expansion. This book contains the first real history of how the worlds largest market, the market for futures and derivatives, arose, how it has been used, and how it has been regulated. Also given is an excellent account of the development of banking and insurance regulation, the problems those industries have faced in the past, difficulties confronting them now, and their prospects for the future.
One section shows how banking and insurance regulations supposedly created to protect the poor forced the poor to subsidise the investment of the rich. Finally, the book shows how the drafting of business regulations has been subject to the influence of solicitors.