>>I don't understand how it worked before 1933, so I had to take the story that it was supposed to prevent speculation (real or under quotation marks) at face value. Whether it really worked is really a question - but then it was obviously an obstacle, or else Citibank wouldn't have spent 200 million to lobby for repeal. And, also, how many bank system crashes were there meanwhile? Pretty much none of a larger scale, until the savings and loan scandal, which was made possible by deregulation.
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>Glass-Seagall was adopted with the purpose to prevent saving banks from playing stock market too much. Period.
>Its repeal in 1999 was highly popular, and passed in bipartisan fashion, because everyone wanted to be on market at that point. That's it.
The definition of popularity must be a personal thing, then. The "you can play the stock market too" was pushed wide to everybody, specially during the dot-com bubble. Nevertheless, if repeal was so popular, why the need to spend 200 million on lobbying? Wouldn't a highly popular bill pass by sheer power of its popularity? And, if it was sooo popular, why did it take twenty years to get done, specifically when another $65 million were spent (but tax money, not lobbying) on an attempt to unseat the incumbent - who was then far more pliable, eh?
>Current financial situation is caused, shortly speaking, by derivatives blowout. Probably, you heard about CDOs, ARSs, etc; it is just a tip. There was nothing in Glass-Seagall dealing with this stuff. It has never been regulated, primarily because nobody knows exactly what is this. At least, Greenspan said openly that he does not have exact knowledge. Basically, it is a very complicated subject and throwing superficial links is just not serious.
I was looking for in-depth links, but as my investigative abilities are limited by available time, I was hoping you would provide more serious insight.
If nobody understood what it was, why were all buying? Just because everybody else was buying? Sounds like a sophisticated pyramid scheme.
