I've said it before and I'll say it again. I have nothing against bank staff gambling for profit, but I object to them doing so with depositor's money backed up with tax payer's cash. So two cheers for Barry Obama for his announcement, and another one if he pulls it off.
Needless to say, The Monocular Leader is dead against any sort of separation of retail or commercial banking from investment banking, because , err, because he is. In fact his only reason is because the Conservatives like the idea.
"Oh no", says Aliaistair Darling, the sage of Omagawd, "it may have been a good idea in the 1930, but not in the 21st century", without giving a reason because he hasn't got one. Fact is, Glass-Steagall was in place until the late 1990's. Ten years after it was ripped up we had the mother of all banking crises, and that was entirely due to securitisation, OTC derivatives and a whole bunch of factors deriving from the interplay of retail and investment banking.
The world is a brighter place and the days are getting longer already.
1 comment:
Aye... the only down-side to this is that there'll be fewer mediocre players in the market. Everyone loves the rich guy whose idea of a poker face makes Jim Carrey look like a statue.
But, since those mediocre players were losing our savings and pensions, it's probably no bad thing if they're not allowed to play any more...
Post a Comment