To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (472754 ) 4/17/2009 12:05:49 PM From: bentway Respond to "I'm still waiting for someone to point to the very regulations that could have prevented this crisis but was cut by the Republicans."en.wikipedia.org allowed commercial and investment banks to consolidate. For example, Citibank merged with Travelers Group, an insurance company, and in 1998 formed the conglomerate Citigroup, a corporation combining banking and insurance underwriting services under brands including Smith-Barney, Shearson, Primerica and Travelers Insurance Corporation. This combination, announced in 1993 and finalized in 1994, would have violated the Glass-Steagall Act and the Bank Holding Company Act by combining insurance and securities companies, if not for a temporary waiver process.[1] The law was passed to legalize these mergers on a permanent basis. Historically, the combined industry has been known as the financial services industry."..."amounts to corporate welfare for financial institutions and a moral hazard that will make taxpayers pay dearly".[16] Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has also argued that the Act helped to create the crisis.[18] An article in The Nation has made the same argument.[19]"
