While one can hardly blame lobbyists for doing what they're paid to do -- lobby -- it's not likely that complaints from the likes of Citigroup (C), Wells Fargo (WFC), and Bank of America (BAC) are going to find a lot of sympathy in Washington. When an industry displays an abject inability to make good decisions to the extent that its blunders nearly bring down the entire world economy, it should take its regulatory medicine and move on.

To be sure, the agency is likely to be tough on mandate, light on enforcement. But that doesn't mean banks can't still whine about it. After all, the CFPA will be partly funded by the financial industry, so really, how tough can it be expected to be on the very firms that pay its salaries?

The new agency's task of designing regulation in our post-crisis world will be tricky. Indeed, mostly because the crisis hasn't passed.

As noted by Minyanville's Kevin Depew, although the worst of the credit crisis is likely behind us, the debt crisis remains in full swing. Washington doesn't seem to understand this, and is acting as if systemic risk is a term we won't be hearing again. Their focus then, will be to legislate aggressively until the next election cycle, in the hopes of proving to their constituency that they were tough on those Wall Street fat cats -- the AIGs (AIG) of the world that stole from the pockets of ordinary Americans.

This is a typical political response, and will likely result in a period of over-regulation --which will stifle advancements, but will do so in an industry where an overabundance of unchecked innovation ran well beyond its usefulness.

The upshot is that for the few small firms nimble enough to dance around the new rules and step in where behemoth banks are unable to tread, opportunities will be plentiful. Indeed, in the void left when banks went running from all loans that even sniffed of real estate, private lenders are reaping huge rewards.

That's as it should be: Recessions are breeding grounds for opportunity. That is, of course, if you know where to look.