Comment from Timothy Zintak, Georgetown University Law Center

Regulation after the Subprime Mortgage Crisis: Why the Proposed Rule under the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act Is Supported by Joseph Schumpeter's Austrian-School Economics Business Cycle Model Introduction The global financial crisis of 2007-present can be considered a manifestation of an international downturn in productivity, potentially indicative of the idea of a business cycle. Joseph Schumpeter’s business cycle is a unique understanding of the processes that contribute to the vacillation of the market that can be used to analyse the current crisis encountered. The Schumpeterian business cycle’s main motivating force is the entrepreneur, an agent whose innovation uses credit and available resources to produce new goods, improve existing goods, devise new productions methods, tap into new sources of supply, or change the way in which an industry is organized. Through these entrepreneurs’ innovation, economies begin to move out of recessionary periods and into periods of general prosperity, after which, imitators attempt to gain profits through exploiting similar means, eventually causing this industry to stop expanding and contract. [Ref. 6, p. 205]. This description of the business cycle from Schumpeter can be applied to the 2007-present subprime mortgage crisis, producing some arguably valid inferences. The subprime mortgage crisis is a unique development because not only is it a reflection of an innovation in which an industry was organised, but it actually constituted a shift in the ability for credit to be provided, what Schumpeter highlights as the driver of entrepreneurial growth. [Ref. 6, p. 223]. The rule proposed authorizes the Department of the Treasury to create an assessment schedule for financial institutions to collect assessments equal to the total expenses of the Office of Financial Research ("OFR"). While the Austrian-School generally casts aspersions on forms of fiscal and regulatory controls on the economy