In essence, under Glass-Steagall and its associated regulatory regime, commercial banks were limited to making money through transaction fees and charges (think checking accounts) and through commercial lending to businesses with good credit and assets to pledge as security. These restrictions were enforced by overlapping state and federal banking regulatory agencies who closely examined the banks under their supervision.
In contrast, investment banking -- essentially Wall Street and few smaller regional players -- made money by underwriting stock and bond sales, investments, and trading in the markets on their own account. Wall Street was primarily regulated by the SEC and the Federal Reserve System.
Under Glass-Steagall, America's system of commercial banks was mostly safe and dull except for periodic spurts of bad lending to hot sectors of the economy. Meanwhile, the often booming stock market from the 1960s and on frequently generated massive fees and trading and investment profits for Wall Street's investment bankers. Commercial bankers jealously eyed that flow of revenue and looked for ways to tap into it.
By the 1980s, Glass Steagall seemed increasingly unnecessary and obsolete as court and regulatory decisions permitted commercial banks to undertake various investment banking activities. Arguably, this made for greater competition and benefitted customers, the public, and the economy at large.
Unfortunately, commercial and investment banking are different types of businesses that call for conflicting skills and practices. They are, so to speak, conflicting specialties, as different as flying airliners and driving race cars are despite that they both involve the control of machines in motion. Like airline pilots, commercial bankers should be risk averse, while investment bankers must be more like race car drivers in their aggressiveness and energetic opportunism.
After Glass-Stegall was repealed, Wall Street gradually accessed massive lending from commercial banks and other lenders to back increasingly complex derivative plays and ever-greater financialization of the American economy. This effectively made the banking system and the entire economy hostage to Wall Street's speculative bets.
Arguably, a return to Glass-Steagall makes more sense than the massive new financial regulatory system that was adopted after the 2008 collapse. Indeed, the best conservative response to the current bill may be embrace it and use it to argue for the repeal of FINRA.
Thank you for the information. I’m still suspicious of this “bipartisan” effort to revive the Act because I wonder what “tweaks” these two sponsors may have come up with. These days congress can’t seem to pass a bill without a lot of BS attached to it.