hvactec
VIP Member
Henry B. Steagall (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Remember when bankers enjoyed regular two martini lunches and played golf a couple of afternoons every work week? If not, it’s probably because you’re too young.
But, those were the good old days under Glass-Steagall, the Depression-era law that separated commercial banks and investment banks.
If you’re too young to remember, you may not know that banks playing speculative games on the securities playground crushed depositors and themselves, triggered The Crash that undermined confidence in all banks, and ushered in the Great Depression.
Glass-Steagall was the legislative reaction to too many playground accidents.
And for over fifty years the separation of deposit-taking and depositor-protected (thanks to the establishment of the FDIC) commercial banks from their swing-for-the-fences investment banking, swashbuckling securities slinging brethren forced banks to lend money and let investment bank broker-dealers go-for-broke with their private pools of capital.
It’s not part of this story that Glass-Steagall was overturned in 1999 because a lot of legislators were paid off in an effort led by the then head of the U.S. Treasury
READ MORE Bank Downgrades Prove No Need for New Glass-Steagall, Right? - Forbes
Last edited: