twice is enough…

Posted on Friday 16 January 2009

This is dry stuff, but it’s the most important stuff right now. This article is from Investopedia [the Wikipedia of Finance]. It is about the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, the Financial piece of the New Deal that established the FDIC and introduced banking regulation. The article was written by someone who thought it was too stringent, and supported it’s being changed. I don’t agree with him, but I thought it was a good summary of the Act, and contains the arguments against it:
Investopedia

In 1933, in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash and during a nationwide commercial bank failure and the Great Depression, two members of Congress put their names on what is known today as the Glass-Steagall Act (GSA). This act separated investment and commercial banking activities. At the time, "improper banking activity", or what was considered overzealous commercial bank involvement in stock market investment, was deemed the main culprit of the financial crash. According to that reasoning, commercial banks took on too much risk with depositors’ money. Additional and sometimes non-related explanations for the Great Depression evolved over the years, and many questioned whether the GSA hindered the establishment of financial services firms that can equally compete against each other. We will take a look at why the GSA was established and what led to its final repeal in 1999.

Reasons for the Act – Commercial Speculation: Commercial banks were accused of being too speculative in the pre-Depression era, not only because they were investing their assets but also because they were buying new issues for resale to the public. Thus, banks became greedy, taking on huge risks in the hope of even bigger rewards. Banking itself became sloppy and objectives became blurred. Unsound loans were issued to companies in which the bank had invested, and clients would be encouraged to invest in those same stocks.

Effects of the Act – Creating Barriers: Senator Carter Glass, a former Treasury secretary and the founder of the U.S. Federal Reserve System, was the primary force behind the GSA. Henry Bascom Steagall was a House of Representatives member and chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee. Steagall agreed to support the act with Glass after an amendment was added permitting bank deposit insurance [this was the first time it was allowed].

As a collective reaction to one of the worst financial crises at the time, the GSA set up a regulatory firewall between commercial and investment bank activities, both of which were curbed and controlled. Banks were given a year to decide on whether they would specialize in commercial or in investment banking. Only 10% of commercial banks’ total income could stem from securities; however, an exception allowed commercial banks to underwrite government-issued bonds. Financial giants at the time such as JP Morgan and Company, which were seen as part of the problem, were directly targeted and forced to cut their services and, hence, a main source of their income. By creating this barrier, the GSA was aiming to prevent the banks’ use of deposits in the case of a failed underwriting job.

The GSA, however, was considered harsh by most in the financial community, and it was reported that even Glass himself moved to repeal the GSA shortly after it was passed, claiming it was an overreaction to the crisis.

Building More Walls: Despite the lax implementation of the GSA by the Federal Reserve Board, which is the regulator of U.S. banks, in 1956, Congress made another decision to regulate the banking sector. In an effort to prevent financial conglomerates from amassing too much power, the new act focused on banks involved in the insurance sector. Congress agreed that bearing the high risks undertaken in underwriting insurance is not good banking practice. Thus, as an extension of the Glass-Steagall Act, the Bank Holding Company Act further separated financial activities by creating a wall between insurance and banking. Even though banks could, and can still can, sell insurance and insurance products, underwriting insurance was forbidden.

The Glass-Steagall Act:
  • Established the F.D.I.C. Insurance on Deposits.
  • Divided Banks into Commercial and Investment Banks to keep Banks from risking their clients savings by investion.
  • Regulated Interest Rates that could be given and charged by Banks.
  • Restricted Large between Banks.
It was brilliant [in my humble opinion]. Commercial Banks made money by loaning money. They held the risk on their loans themselves. They lost money on bad loans and made money on good loans. They paid interest on deposits out of their loan profits. They were required to have a portion of their Capital on hand to cover withdrawals. Investment Banks made money by investing. While they paid higher interest, the principle was uninsured. It was a clean system that blocked the abuse of the 1920’s that lea so many Banks to fail during the Depression. Nobody got terribly rich in the process, but safety was assured.

Starting with Reagan’s election, the Glass-Steagall Act was deconstructed, piece by piece until it was gone, by Republican lawmakers pushed by the Banking/Wall Street Industry. So we ended up with huge Banking Conglomerates that did everything under the sun, including buying and selling risk like it was a Commodity. Now they’re collapsing because of their speculation, and we can’t let them fail. They’re too central to our economy.

The Deregulation of out Banking system and our Financial Markets was a terrible idea. It made a lot of money for a lot of people, but it destroyed our economy. Once again, we proved that a [too] Free Market economy is not self regulating. The same people who took apart Glass-Steagall are winding up to oppose Regulation again with the same arguments that created this mess. This is going to be a bear of a problem. It’s going to require working our way backwards against the stream. It’s probably going to mean a rebuilding of the SEC and CFTC from the ground up into an overarching Market watchdog. It’s going to mean taking these mega-Banks and breaking them into pieces much as we had to do with monopolies. It may mean government run Banking for a while. And, if we have any sense, it will mean the death of Hedge Funds and other Institutions that parasitize our Marketing system. Glass-Steagall slowed down our financial hot-shots and cut their profits. The alternative was financial disaster, now visited upon us twice in one century. Solution: To hell with the hot shots

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