Those looking for a roadmap that lays out the basic ideas that animate Dodd-Frank and its key provisions should turn to David Skeel’s book. . . . Skeel summarizes Dodd-Frank in 200 readable pages that leads the reader through the basic provisions of the historic legislation and its consequences, both intended and unintended.

During the final debates over the passage of Dodd-Frank, Texas Republican Congressman Jeb Hensarling observed that “There are at least three unintended consequences on every page of this legislation.” Quite a few for a bill that ran to 2,319 pages. Skeel picks up on this theme and after starting by explaining the intended goals of Dodd-Frank and the ways in which the legislation attempts to implement them, concludes that in fact Dodd-Frank will have negative unintended consequences that will vastly exceed the beneficial intended effects of the legislation. . . .

Having credited the drafters of Dodd-Frank with articulating coherent and reasonable goals, however, Skeel is withering in his assessment that the legislation itself will likely be a complete failure in attaining its intended objectives. In fact, not only does Skeel conclude that Dodd-Frank will largely fail in accomplishing its central objectives, it will create additional unintended consequences that will result in substantial economic, financial, and even political harm. . . .

Skeel’s book is a crucially important contribution to understanding Dodd-Frank. . . . After the burst of ad hoc, politically-motivated interventions that shredded the rule of law, Dodd-Frank does not put the genie of government discretion back into the bottle, but instead entrenches it in the guise of legislation. But while giving the appearance of imposing new rules, Dodd-Frank actually merely codifies this discretion and in many instances substantially enlarges it. It specifically grants huge discretionary powers to regulators (such as the breathtaking powers to “resolve” the failure of large financial institutions with minimal notice and due process and virtually no judicial review) it also contains hundreds of rule-making proceedings with no legislative oversight. Politicians will always favor enlarged discretion as a means to increase their power and the opportunity to bargain with powerful interest groups and large, politically-connected interest groups favor discretion for similar reasons. It is only constitutional government and the rule of law that protect ordinary citizens who cannot hire the lawyers and lobbyists to manipulate the levers of power effectively.