Global banking regulators may be close to reaching a deal on bank liquidity requirements that could saddle the U.S. taxpayer with supporting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for eternity.

The committee drafting the new Basel III rules will meet in Switzerland next Tuesday. A final set of rules is expected to be agreed on September 12. The leaders of the Group of 20 nations are expected to endorse the rules when they meet in November.

A little noticed change in the proposed rules, however, could throw a monkey wrench into plans to reform Fannie and Freddie, the two mortgage giants that have spent the last two years on government life-support. So far, U.S. taxpayers have been forced to pony up around $150 billion for Fannie and Freddie, and the Congressional Budget Office says that the total cost could amount to three times that much.

Policy makers who hoped to eventually remove the costly government subsidies and guarantees for Fannie and Freddie will run into a stumbling block, however, if the Basel III rules are implemented. That’s because Basel III includes a liquidity requirement for banks that will encourage them to buy the debt of the Fannie and Freddie as well as the mortgage-backed securities they back.

The new liquidity regulation—sometimes known as “The Bear Stearns Rule”—is intended to make sure that banks have enough “high-quality liquid assets” to survive a temporary credit crunch. Specifically, the banks will be required to have enough high-quality liquid assets to fund 30 days of capital outflows under a stress scenario.

Right from the start, the way the Basel Committee defined “high-quality liquid assets” was problematic. It included cash and central bank reserves, relatively non-controversial highly liquid assets. But it also included sovereign debt, a move that would inevitably encourage banks to hold more sovereign debt than they otherwise would. This is problematic for two reasons—it created an implicit subsidy for spend-thrift governments and it created the danger of over-exposing banks to sovereign defaults.

Forget the boutique firms and hedge funds. If you're in the banking industry and looking for a new gig, there's now another option: open a shot-girl business.

The official story line behind Wall Street firms selling off hedge funds is that the moves are driven by the Volcker Rule, which severely limited the level of investments banks can make in hedge funds and private equity funds.

But the truth is more complex. The romance between banks and hedge funds—which had led to expensive buyouts for banks and big paydays for many former bankers who had become hedge fund moguls—soured long before the Volcker Rule, which has yet to take effect. Even if the rule wasn’t in the pipeline, many top executives at the banks now look on the acquisitions of hedge funds as mistakes or perhaps even scams.

When we broke the news that Morgan Stanley was selling off FrontPoint , we noted that FrontPoint was founded by former Morgan Stanley executives . In short, it was a deal between closely related, long-term insiders.

The same could be said of many of the acquisitions of hedge funds by banks during the boom years. In case after case, the hedge fund managers were brought back into the bank and given important management positions.

We can just about squint our eyes and see those “acquisitions” as merely huge signing bonuses for the founders of the funds. If the payouts were disclosed as bonuses, they may have prompted more scrutiny and perhaps shareholder outrage. But since they were characterized as acquisitions of important and valuable assets, they largely escaped the attention of the pitchforkers.

Reports that JPMorgan is shutting down its prop trading desk has market watchers wringing their hands about liquidity. “Kiss liquidity goodbye” was the subject of one email I got from a trader. Really?

As concerns of a double-dip recession have increased, many commentators are suggesting that Japan’s post bubble economy and stock market will serve as a road map for what the U.S. can expect.

Whenever someone points to causes of the financial crisis not officially approved by veteran blogger Barry Ritholtz, lightning and thunder issues forth from Ritholtz’s blog—The Big Picture —decrying the spread of disinformation and “cognitive dissonance.”

Ritholtz’s favorite tactic is to point out that X could not be a cause of the financial crisis because the existence of X predated the financial crisis. We like to think of this as Ritholtz’s Time-Lapse Rule of the crisis.

Ritholtz trotted out the Time Lapse Rule once again in response to my New York Times Op-Ed on Fannie Mae , Freddie Mac , and the Federal Housing Administration.

"Fannie was created in 1938, and Freddie was created in 1968," Ritholz writes . "Now explain to me why in 2008 — 70 and 40 years later respectively — they somehow caused the crash & crisis?"

Stated in this way, the Time Lapse Rule has the trappings of a sensible point. But those trappings vanish in the presence of thought. It only makes sense if you close your eyes to the profound changes that Fannie and Freddie underwent in the recent past—changes that led them to take on more risk and encourage riskier mortgage lending.

Importantly, even Ritholtz doesn’t really believe in the Time Lapse Theory. It’s easy to see this just by looking ath who Ritholtz does want to blame for the financial crisis. He’s helpfully provided a list of 25 culprits , so this isn’t a difficult assignment. What happens when we apply the Time Lapse Rule test to Ritholtz’s list?

Well, jobs didn't exactly make a comeback in August, as employment continued to slip for a third straight month. But nonfarm payrolls suprised, falling 54,000 instead of the expected 100,000, according to Reuters.

Private employment also added more jobs than analysts expected coming in at 67,000 new positions, compared to analysts' expectations of 41,000, according to Reuters estimates.

Could have been worse, I guess.

• Fewer US Jobs Lost in August; Private Hiring Beats Forecasts (CNBC.com)

So what did Dick Fuld do to prepare for his stunning Capitol Hill revelation that he thinks Lehman Brothers failed because policy makers had “flawed information?”

Ben Bernanke’s Reading List (Wall Street Journal) The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission asked the Fed chairman what books he would recommend to help people better understand the financial crisis. He suggests three academic papers—one on the 2007 commercial paper crunch, one on how the mortgage mess became a full-blown financial meltdown, and another on how to measure systemic risk. You won’t read those. Here’s one suggestion you might: Liaquat Ahmed’s “Lords of Finance.”