The free market needs strong rules

The financial crisis reminds us once again at the wisdom that the free market, just like a football game needs rules to be able to function in an efficient and competitive way. We come out of a period where the sophism which means that new financial instruments can reduce the risk, was at its best. The lessons of this financial catastrofe will only be learnt, if we go back to the old insight that in order to reduce the risk, the financial sector best has to keep itself to certain limits. This will only happen if we impose these limits from outside just like Adam Smith suggested more than two hundred years ago. We do not expect that the players of a football game define themselves the rules on a football field, do we?