Reply #8: This kind of theft was made possible by deregulation started under Reagan and continuing today. [View All]

[AdHocSolver]

It even occurred under Bill Clinton when he signed off on repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. The Glass-Steagall Act was part of FDR's New Deal which was designed to prevent the kind of activities that led to the melt down we saw in the financial markets. Robert Rubin pushed through repeal of Glass-Steagall and was rewarded with a directorship at CitiGroup for his efforts.

We can also blame the Fed especially on Alan Greenspan's watch, who was an enabler by manipulating Fed policies. His "we made a mistake" claims are pure b*llsh*t, as he knew exactly what he was doing.

The massive theft under Paulson, under the guise of an economic bailout, is another brazen fraud.

The New Deal laws regulating the financial businesses MUST be reinstated with effective enforcement capabilities. This country also has to revisit antitrust laws. Any business that becomes "too big to fail" is already too big to be allowed to exist. Instead of merging corporations, we should be breaking them up. Monopoly power prevents competition and enables all sorts of economic abuses.

Government regulators are, or at least should be, to the economy what a referee is to a ball game. Regulators are needed to make sure that the game is played fairly and honestly, and to impose penalties for noncompliance with the rules.

The only reason that corporations fight regulation is to make it "legal" for them to get away with crooked schemes.