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Comment by drubio | Hacker News Reader

Interesting in various fronts

* Economic That banks with the 'deal power' of Goldman and Morgan would set themselves up to the scrutiny of the Fed (adopting a commercial bank) is just amazing. These banks made the money they made and had the salaries/bonuses to go with it because they had little regulation with respect to commercial banks.

* Power Jobs / Career Tracks I don't know what the bulk of MBA's will aspire to now -- or Hollywood for the matter. Investment banking was regarded as a golden standard for 'making it'. So no more, now that investment banking has gone down the toilet.

* Regulation / Legislation Ironic, but the Glass-Steagall Act which was enacted in 1933 after the great depression was precisely the OPPOSITE: To separate commercial banking from investment banking! REF: http://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/important/index.html (So it looks like the cycle has started once again)

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>* Power Jobs / Career Tracks I don't know what the bulk of MBA's will aspire to now -- or Hollywood for the matter. Investment banking was regarded as a golden standard for 'making it'. So no more, now that investment banking has gone down the toilet.

These companies will still be conducting Investment Banking activities. There are other bank holding companies who also own investment banks (Citigroup, and I believe JP Morgan, in addition to a host of foreign banks like UBS). What this means is that they will be forced to adopt capital requirements and other regulation in their portfolio business and take on two new regulators in exchange for more financial stability from deposits and access to Federal Reserve funds.

>* Regulation / Legislation Ironic, but the Glass-Steagall Act which was enacted in 1933 after the great depression was precisely the OPPOSITE: To separate commercial banking from investment banking! REF: http://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/important/index.html (So it looks like the cycle has started once again)

Preventing deposit-taking institutions from taking risky activities is of much less importance now that there is an FDIC. Also, having diversified business lines should make these firms less likely to fail. Glass-Steagal made firms more fragile. You don't see JP Morgan, Citigroup, Wachovia, or B of A getting bought out, yet.

the FDIC is a joke.

downmod all you want, it won't make your bank accounts any safer. does anyone remember when the FSLIC simply disappeared in the 80's?

"the FDIC’s reserves reported it had US$45.2 billion of reserves covering 1.01% of all deposits. This is considered historically low."

"FDIC Chairman Sheila Blair said yesterday that they may need to borrow money from the Treasury due to “short-term liquidity issues”"

What was the point of Glass-Steagall? I've heard justifications about banks underwriting a bond and then having the commercial bank buy it, but these justifications never agree on who is defrauding whom. It is very easy for an investment bank and a commercial bank to make that kind of deal even if they don't share a corporate parent ("Oh, you want in on the next big IPO? Well, let me tell you how to get to the top of the list! I just need one little favor...").

Actually, all of the justifications I've heard seem to imply that Glass-Steagall was necessary to criminalize things like fraud and undisclosed conflicts of interest, which I thought were already illegal.

Glass-Steagall was enacted to avoid 'runs' on banks when speculation was rampant, which was the cause of the great depression in 29'. It separated consumer funds from investors to avoid all out panics, and its wby the FDIC has that $100,000 'insurance' on your commercial bank account.

Frauds and undisclosed conflict of interest still occur, but that is a matter for the SEC, which oversees investments.

I'm sorry, but that doesn't actually make any sense at all. Why would forcing a bank to focus on either investment banking or commercial banking, but not both, avoid runs on the bank? Bear Stearns was an investment bank; it faced a run on the bank. Indymac was a commercial bank; it faced a run on the bank. So far, it looks like the banks that were exclusively one or the other have faced runs, but I don't know of any bank active in direct lending and capital markets (and merger advisory and such) that faced a run on the bank.

Frauds and undisclosed conflict of interest still occur, but that is a matter for the SEC, which oversees investments.

This tends to reinforce my "It was already illegal, so making it illegal again is at best a duplication of effort, and at worst a way to further restrict those of us who aren't criminals," point.

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