Chewing on Dodd-Frank spaghetti

Today is Dodd-Frank's birthday.

Not that you forgot, but now it's time to celebrate with a late lunch of regulatory reform spaghetti, courtesy of the banking team at Deloitte:

Just 206 items in the 2,000-page-plus legislation are awaiting next steps, the Deloitte chart shows. The thing where the Securities and Exchange Commission has been charged with implementing this massive piece of legislation in a hurry at a time when its budget is being cut makes all the sense in the world, of course.

"The crush of things they have to do at the SEC just adds to the cost of doing business," says an executive at an investment adviser bemused by the length of the registration process for new exchange-traded products. "But we have a lot of respect for the people down there because the pressure on them must just be immense."

Even so, it's clear that the regulatory mechanism, which didn't exactly shine during the bubble and the 2008 bust, gets more bent out of shape by the day. It's enough to dull your appetite.