Hammerin’ Hank Paulson may want to see the Office of Thrift Supervision closed, but OTS director John Reich sees the S&L regulator’s role as important as ever. Via the Associated Press:

John Reich, director of the federal Office of Thrift Supervision, said Tuesday that his agency should be given broad powers over mortgage bankers and brokers, many of whom operate outside federal regulation. “There needs to be a federal supervisor of the entire mortgage industry,” Reich said at a briefing with reporters.

Reich characterized Paulson’s plan to see the OTS absorbed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency “counterintuitive and contrary to how we ought to be responding to the current market correction,” the AP reported. Nothing like the threat of extinction, we suppose, to stimulate discussion over who’s relevant and who isn’t.