I thought there already was a division of investment and commercial banking a while ago. or was that in the UK?

there used to be in the US (under Glass-Steagall), but it was repealed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Act

"The repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 effectively removed the separation that previously existed between Wall Street investment banks and depository banks and has been blamed for exacerbating the damage caused by the collapse of the subprime mortgage market that led to the Financial crisis of 2007–2010."

Goldman Sachs, after the great financial debacle, is now a commercial bank, which can rely on too big to fail guarantees by the federal government and the FDIC, and is also an investment bank. Glass-Steagall was not recodified in the new legislation, sadly.

The definition of insanity is to repeat the same thing expecting different results. When this last of epoch of American Hegemony is written in the future, the addiction to deregulation (exponentially gaining momentum since Ronnie) will be baffling to systems analysts and historians. How was this load of shit foisted off on an American public successfully?

I always find it funny that Dodd and Frank were somehow behind the collapse yet the Republicans were in control of Congress from 1995-2006. They certainly played their part but let's not act like they were setting committee agendas. Classic example of "if you repeat something enough times on TV, it becomes true"

True story: i saw an article where Alan Greenspan said we should let the Bush tax cuts expire and it seriously caused me to revisit my position on the issue.

Have you seen where people think he is either bluffing, or trying to somehow rewrite his legacy?

I think our biggest obstacle is to anything right now is people trading long term planning and hard choices for immediate political gain....of course that has been the problem in our country for years. The only difference is the definition of immediate has gone from A Few Years to A Few Months to A Few Days to RIGHTFUCKINGNOW.

Yeah, Big Al has been in that mode for a while. I wish Andrea would give him the "be well" treatment with a fucking pillow.

Yes, or she could just starve by withholding his dinner. And by "Withholding his dinner" I mean "Stop shitting on his chest."

It's absolutely stunning, and has confirmed my belief that the federal government is regulated by corporations and not the other way around. The fact that the public hasn't been up in arms about this speaks to the sad state of the the populace's understanding about what is really going on. If we couldn't get the right regulation after this calamity, the US government is broken or literally shills for big finance. It's not even partisan. This is just a hosing of the taxpayer to the benefit of big finance, but they won't know it until the next bail out of the too big to fails.

Bloor, I belive Greenspan to be the chief culprit in the collapse no doubt. But frank and dodd were definitely complicit in it. Oddly, I really don't think partisan. Those are just the main guys in financial regulation that have been constant throught bush and Barry.

Saint, I agree that financial regulation is prudent. Just not this bill.

Anyone with half a brain cell left (includes G-Span, but, alarmingly, not those public servants who make decisions to shape our future) knows that the Bush tax cuts need to expire. Has nothing to do with his legacy... the last three years have dissolved most of the myth of economic expansion we've been mainlining. Even he sees this.

tax cuts while maintaining his two wars of choice. pretty despicable. let his grandkids pay for his utter folly.

Goldman Sachs could rely on too big to fail guarantees even before they converted to a commercial bank. Most of the banks that were in the worst shape (other than Citibank) were ones that had no or small depository bases. How would we have been better off if Glass Steagall had been in place and BOFA had not been able to buy Merrill Lynch? Do you think that the feds would have really let ML fail or that the country would have been better off if it did? The repeal of Glass Steagall had nothing (REPEAT NOTHING) to do with the crisis.

I'm not against finreg reform. I think some derivatives regulation is necessary. This is terrible legislation though. For example, it doesn't even address Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac -- two of the biggest fails out there and the ones in most need of reform. They are still out there guaranteeing loans with miniscule deposits putting taxpayers at increasing risk.

As far as Too Big to Fail goes, in theory there are things that they could do to make it easier to deal with failed finanancial institutions through a bankruptcy process but its very complicated and I have little confidence that anyone would get it right especially with the global nature of these firms and all of the unforeseen repurcussions in other markets when Lehman failed. The problem in thinking that anyone is really going to deal with too big to fail is that this big financial institutions generally get in trouble together not in isolation. I just don't see any political leaders having the will to let a bunch of big banks fail. Its kind of like the national debt limit. Just political bs.

As far as the original topic goes, anyone watch Meet the Press on Sunday? This current batch of repug leaders are terrible. They really are risking squandering a golden opportunity to pick up seats. No one was offering any ideas at all for what they would do differently.

Dude, you're arguing with Saint.

I don't agree with you here. It's not the only cause of the crisis, but certainly one of them.

What enlightenment do you have to bring the topic, einstein?

agreed. they are obstructionist idiots. they are offering nothing compelling as an alternative to our current government.

The rise of the tea-party is going to be the downfall of the Republicans.

Seriously, you could probably scribble something together on your lunch break, call it the "New Contract For America" and voila, at least they'd have something.

You assume this lack of focus on real suggestions or plans is inept or mistaken. I contend that it is disciplined obfuscation. To actually take a position on anything other than "wasteful government spending" would invite scrutiny and disturb the mind of the American voter with fact and specificity. Lack of an agenda is intentional. It may work fairly well, but won't get them congress. That recent poll showed "approval and trust" of Obama in the high 30's, approval of Dems in congress low 30's, approval of Repugs in congress 20's. And it would fall lower if the Repugs actually stood for anything. Even conservatives like George Will are just whiney. But having said that the Dems will lose pretty big in this election... there was a book just out on letters to FDR after his fireside chats, and the vitriol was astonishing... Tea Party numbskulleried anger is an American birthright.

You might be right about it being intentional but it is misguided. They will still pick up seats but Dems will probably scrap back in a lot of races that they should lose by painting Repubs as a bunch of do nothing obstructionists with no ideas and tieing them to the Bush years which no one remembers fondly. That was at least what was going on in the Meet the Press show and I thought it was pretty effective.

On the POTUS channel on XM, they always play clips from that day in Presidential history during the last ten minutes of the morning news...

Anyway, they play a lot of FDR (it would stand to reason given the length of time in office) and I can see why he upset a lot of people--some of the shit he said is basically what people accuse Obama of saying or doing but he (or any other modern, Corporatist politician) would never actually say or do. Like, "attention leaders of big business, you will no longer be making a profit. sorry."

It's astounding but also gives you perspective of just how crazy the times were...

On a local note, the primaries are tomorrow in Georgia and the level of crazy in the TV ads is pretty entertaining.

Or how sane FDR was. It's illustrative of our times to ask the question, could FDR be elected to a school board? Unlikely. This is, in part, why Michael Moore says "give me my country back." Now Moore is a genuine ass, but he has point at least in observing the change in the American Public Sphere.

I'm actually a little disappointed in Georgia primary season this year. No one is running a "This is America We Speak English, nor is anyone having to go up with a "Glen Libbons" esque ad proclaiming they deem every word of the Bible to be absolutely true, and written by God himself.

(I don't count Dale Peterson or Rick Barber's campaign films as ads, or I'd bring them up, too)

Different times call for different kinds of politicians. I can only think of three President's though who were so essential to their time and place that the Republic may have failed without them: Washington, Lincoln and FDR.

Everybody else was either a nice bright fellow, a lucky bastard, a hapless sot or some combo of the three.