They never, ever envisioned corruption when they put Graham-Bliley-Leach in place.

Have to wonder if they were naive or really corrupt from the start.

Some areas were way over built with out of state companies going in ..manipulating data for the need ..Raleigh N.C. and the surrounding areas is one place.Lots of cheap Mexican labor there.

Bob in HI

And thank you Ms. Kouril for your work and series.

And Ms. Kouril, may I quote a passage from Mitchell’s Series about Milken and Dendreon:

“Rolling Stone magazine’s Matthew Taibbi, who is one of the mainstream media’s finest journalists, was among the first to establish that AIG Trading Group and Milken crony Cassano destroyed AIG, which ultimately had to be nationalized by the U.S. government – greatly contributing to the collapse of the financial system last fall. Since then, several reports have also implicated Cassano’s Milken-tied predecessors, Klein and Davis.

Meanwhile, various government investigations are seeking to know whether short sellers acquired and manipulated the prices of AIG’s credit default swaps as a way to weaken their target companies – including Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. The question that remains unanswered is whether the short sellers that bought credit default swaps from Milken cronies Cassano, Klein and Davis were also members of the Milken network (which would mean that some members of the Milken network wrecked the world while the other members of the network bet that they would).

Another highly significant factor in the collapse of the financial system – as can be discerned from statements by countless officials and by reports in virtually every newspaper in the land, though the newspapers seem content not to investigate the matter or state this explicitly – was the naked short selling of AIG, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and hundreds of other companies.”

It’s an incredible series, as is yours, and Patrick Byrne’s . . . *G* You folks should meet! ;-)

Hugh, thanks . . . Naked Capitalism is a site worth keeping in anyone’s bookmarks if they don’t have it yet . . . and yet I’m amazed too, at your stated reactions from there to your thoughts on Glass-Steagall.

Go figger . . . .

More on the behind the scenes of all this skullduggery can be found HERE, And Read Mitchell’s Report On Milken/Dendreon To Tie It All Up

The level of crooked and scheming and the ties between mafioso’s of the world and our government officials and government institutions is insane.

It all factors into US domestic and foreign policy going back to The Depression.

Incredible what we are up against.

I have also said this over at Naked Capitalism. I have been surprised there because some of the posters say that Glass-Steagall would not do all that much and that it would not have prevented the housing crisis and subsequent meltdown. OK, amazed would be a better word. AIG could never have started up AIGFP and gotten into the derivatives business under Glass-Steagall which applied not just to banks but to insurance companies too. Banks would not have been put at risk because they could neither speculate in real estate on their own or work with mortgage underwriters to that end. The superbanks like Citi, BoA, and JPMorgan could not have formed or become such big players in the real estate market or acted like hedge funds or as in the case of JPMorgan become the biggest derivatives holder and trader on the planet.

At any rate, your series is very important, and I hope it helps the new commission get of on the right foot (feet?) If Congress brings back Glass- Steagall, maybe your series should get some of the credit!

Bob in HI