From the “Don’t just do something — stand there!” file, the latest Barron’s includes a brief article about the impact of the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation.

The Dodd-Frank financial-reform law, Congress’ attempt to head off another financial crisis, failed to address the root problem and has left the markets as vulnerable as ever to systemic shocks, says a top expert in financial panics.

Gary Gorton, a Yale professor and author of Misunderstanding Financial Crises, says the law does little to rein in the “shadow banking” system — a vast array of bank-like services from nonbank firms. It’s everything from money-market funds to repurchase agreements, and to Gorton, it was the real culprit in the global financial meltdown of 2008. It is also, he says, the biggest hole in Dodd-Frank, which was passed in 2010 but has yet to be fully implemented.