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To: SonOfDarkSkies
Thanks for your post...good info.

IMO, the biggest problem is over-leverage. Dubya allowed Wall Street firms to employ leverage of 40-1, where a paper loss of 2.5% wipes out your equity, even if only temporarily.

What say you about the potential repeal of Glass-Steagall?

9 posted on 12/09/2009 9:25:36 AM PST by Night Hides Not (If Dick Cheney = Darth Vader, then Joe Biden = Dark Helmet)
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To: Night Hides Not
I think the (1999) repeal of Glass-Steagall was a big mistake.

My father-in-law was the CEO of a large bank and was the typical old-fashioned, risk averse kind of lender. Replacing that kind of guy with an investment banker and injecting into a commercial bank an aggressive investment banking kind of culture would (and did) lead to trouble.

BTW, I was long gone from the business by the time the Act was repealed, but the banks had been chipping away at it since as far back as I can remember.

11 posted on 12/09/2009 9:44:52 AM PST by SonOfDarkSkies (The Mahdi turned out to be a Marxist! Who knew?)
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