Wednesday, November 11, 2009

What Must Be Done to Reform Wall St. Banks at the least

Congressional reform must repeal (or un-do) the two odious laws deregulating Wall St. in '99 and '00 -The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, which dissolved the firewall between commercial and investment banks (undoing the Glass-Steagall act of the Depression era) and The Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (which deregulated exotic financial instruments like credit default swaps), both of which opened the Wall St. Casino doors wide and free from transparency and oversight, it will be a good bill. It must break up the too- big-to-fail banks decisively (reinstating the separation of commercial and investment banks would do this). If it doesn't accomplish at least those two goals, it's window dressing.

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