Currency is regulated into existence. Someone has to print it. Like it or not, there are all sorts of natural monopolies which exist in nature. The first and foremost is a monopoly on violence by the state. This is, in fact, demanded by the citizens who have a lot to lose if companies et al. were also allowed to pursue their interests by brandishing weapons. Thus, the first regulation is that companies cannot pursue their interests via force.

Thus, we are already out of the perfect world imagined by Austrian economists and exposing the simplistic lie that their worldview entails -- the social union that is the state is not merely a machine but, in the American republic, exists by the consent of the governed. Consequently, it has the power to issue additional regulations deemed to be in the interests of the governed, of which one might be that there be a single national currency, a single national language, etc. This is because our state is rooted in a Lockean social contract (with undoubtedly a good sprinkling of Hobbes).

Now, the precise nature of the regulations and whether or not they serve the people and whether or not they are consistent with the founding documents and accompanying intentions of the Republic is not always clear. Nonetheless, I think it is clear enough that at least in the American republic (if not a Randian inspired anti-state) that regulations are sometimes an answer to various problems.

Consequently, I would argue that if the SEC was able to attract and retain top talent and execute on its mandate it would have been able to stop this sub-prime nonsense in its tracks long before the present bubble burst and infected the rest of the economy with its TARPy bile. This is exactly why it existed -- because history tells us that banks like Goldman cannot be trusted to regulate themselves and act within the interests of the American people.