The regulators feared giving a large American bank holding company over to a largely unregulated foreign bank.

The predicted crisis has not developed, and many regulators and insurers fear that Congress is losing interest.

What regulators and industry fear most deeply is "consumer panic."

Some regulators fear that investors are also borrowing from sources other than their brokers to buy stocks, including credit cards or second mortgages.

European regulators fear consumers may be paying too high a price to keep the American retail superpower at bay.

Or, as some regulators fear, unscrupulous brokers may suggest that the old common stock has value when it does not.

Large manufacturers have bought expensive diesel generators, which environmental regulators fear will contribute to air pollution.

Private initiative could fill in where regulators fear to tread.

But this proposal ran into serious trouble because regulators feared that the combined company would drive up electric and gas rates.

Economists and regulators no longer fear unchecked corporate power, the concern that drove antitrust policy for the first half of the century.