The New Welfare Queens wear Zegna suits.
$30 billion. That might be the size of the welfare check the FDIC is writing to Wall Street tonight.
Of course, there is no Wall Street as we have known it; that Wall Street has just ceased to exist. Merrill-Lynch will be bought by Bank of America. CBS radio reports the FDIC is standing in as a $30 billion guarantor by allowing BoA to use deposits (read: our money) to make the deal.... and Lehman Brothers is heading for bankruptcy after rescue negotiations failed.
This is it, then. The seeds sown by the dismantling of FDR's banking laws have born some seriously bitter fruit.
How did we get here? By ignoring the past.
The Glass-Steagall Act successfully protected the markets from the worst excesses of capitalism for 65 years; for over half a century. its firewalls between commercial banks and insurers and investment houses prevented the bad paper and risky deals of one sector from dragging down the others.
It has taken less than a decade for reckless deregulation(thank you, Phil Gramm) to reduce the banking industry to a pile of worthless paper. And we all know how the insurance industry feels about acutally having to insure people these days.
What can you do about it? Not a hell of a lot. But we can at least vote for the guy who understands it's long past time we close the barn door.