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Did Glass-Steagall Put a Man on the Moon?

pkust Wrote: Jul 30, 2012 6:46 AM

Diversity does reduce risk. But one thing to remember about Glass Steagall is it maintained diversity of banking structures -- and while that may not have reduced risk to any one individual institution, it did reduce risk across the entire banking system. Glass Steagall could have kept the derivatives market from tainting commercial banking and lending activities -- which very much was the case of the S&L crisis of the '80s (what made that crisis containable was the ability of the economy overall to keep growing, and thus soak up the bad debt of the failed thrifts).

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Did Glass-Steagall Put a Man on the Moon?

I have to admit I have yet to view an entire episode of Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom, as I find a sufficient amount of fiction on the real news. As Cato scholar Trevor Burris recently illustrated, the show plays pretty loose with the facts, completely distorting the substance of Citizens United.

The show’s recent explanation of the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated investment and commercial banking, is actually a fairly accurate portrayal of the religious-like devotion expressed by proponents of Glass-Steagall. During the short segment, which you can view here, we are led...