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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Poet who wrote (186038)	2/23/2009 5:07:41 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 306849

The repeal of Glass Steagall in 1999 allowed for the same combination of commercial banks and investment banks that caused the great depression. When these functions are combined, investment losses will always result in unavailability of commercial lending, which will always result in a credit crunch / depression. That's how financially responsible small businesses and homeowners end up suffering from Bank of America's derivatives and MBS trading. It's no coincidence that the great depression started with the loss of depositor funds in the stock / real estate markets and only started to improve after the Glass Steagal Act of 1933. It's also no coincidence that a mere 8 years after its lobbyist-inspired repeal, banks such as the freshly conglomerated Citigroup and Bank of America had plunged the US into a credit crunch. Now these mega-institutions are costing the American taxpayer HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS in direct bailouts and TRILLIONS in GDP destruction. That is the price we pay when we fail to learn the lessons of our grandparents. seekingalpha.com