Barry Ritholtz argues that it was regulatory exemptions that contributed to the current crisis, "You read that right - the events of the past year are not a mere accident, but are the results of a conscious and willful SEC decision to allow these firms to legally violate existing net capital rules that, in the past 30 years, had limited broker dealers debt-to-net capital ratio to 12-to-1." The exemption was for five firms to leverage to 40-1, three of them are now defunct and the other two have issues.