Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"That's, of course, open to debate, but these are sweeping new proposals. Of course, they're going to ultimately have to be written and approved by Congress, so we're not there yet. This is just the start of the debate. But the president's proposals fall into three broad areas. First, he wants to give more power to the Federal Reserve to regulate some of the financial institutions that really fell through the gaps, institutions like Lehman Brothers, which the Federal Reserve really worked tirelessly to save. Secondly, he wants to require lenders originating loans, particularly home loans, mortgages, to retain some ownership in them. That has been a point of controversy, where a lender, a bank, could originate a loan, then simply sell it in the secondary market, not have any ownership part of that. And some think that led to more risky loans being let. The president says he wants those lenders to at least retain 5 percent. That, of course, will be debated, whether that's too much or too little. Thirdly, he wants to create a new agency, a new consumer agency with broad powers to regulate consumer financial products, including mortgages. I think this is the most controversial part of his proposal. This is just the starting point, but I think clearly, we're going to have some new regulations in the financial area. One point that the columnists make, though, is that the next recession, the next downturn, probably won't be in the financial area. It will be in another area, so this is not meant to be viewed as some way of preventing recessions in the future. We will have future recessions."