Why we should fear the FSA

So Hector Sants is retiring after 3 years as head of the FSA. Should we really be afraid of the organisation he left behind? Yes, but not for the reasons he would like us to be. In a financial environment where the institutional providers have traditionally been able to extract maximum profit from the retail client base Greed will inevitably raise its' head (even higher) and prove that the "bigger fool" theory of economics is a perfect description of the retail client.
The retail investor is regularly fleeced with investment ideas promoting products created for the retail investor offering returns, opportunities or whatever in language clear enough to be comprehended if not necessarily understood. So the product is sold on trust, a trust which has been repeatedly betrayed.
Enter the FSA. They focussed on protecting the retail investor believing that it was just a matter of documentation. The truth of the matter is that the FSA was putting out the fire in the gatehouse while the main house was being engulfed by flames, better known as excessive risk resulting in the credit crisis.
Until the FSA is able to distance itself from the bodies it regulates and objectively understand that profit begets greed begets risk begets boom begets bust and that it is their responsiblilty to save the institutional providers from themselves, thereby protecting the retail investor (and acutally just about everybody else) from the instititutionals we the public, not the banks should be afraid of the FSA. Self-regulation presumes Utopia and we all know how Thomas More ended.