[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Adak

And the derivatives! That's just about the same as casino gambling, imo. The occupy crowd were largely paid to be there.....

Let's not get into which grassroots groups were really astroturfing. Especially not since Dick Army's $8 million buy off from the tea party.

I agree with you on derivatives. Securitization, the basic bundling of mortgages, served a purpose by widening participation and spreading risk, useful tools in banking and insurance. However, at some point it stopped being about efficiency and ended up as essentially a numbers racket.

The Financial_Services_Modernization Act of 1999 was passed with a Democratic president and a Republican Congress. It's defenders do not believe that it is in any way responsible for the 2007 meltdown, but it's repeal of parts of Glass-Steagall, a law based on lessons learned from the Great Depression, was troubling. The passed was bipartisan, although more Democrats opposed it than Republicans.

The real culprit may have been the 2000 passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act which took away all state and local 'bucket shop' laws against derivatives, which was another lesson learned from the Great Depression. At that point it was as if someone opened a floating crap game in the corner of every securities market in the US.