Forum Post: Glass Steagall was good for Wall Street

You know, this may sound weird, but Glass Steagall gave us a sound financial system for over 60 years, a system that Wall Street benefited immensely from. I'm not saying the small slice at the very top of the heap (maybe they did benefit from fucking over the entire planet, I'm not sure), but certainly the New York financial industry has gone to shit, and it's directly related to the repeal of Glass Steagall (and its workers have felt the bite as badly as everyone else). During the 1990's the New York financial industry did remarkably well, and we had Glass Steagall during the entire decade (it wasn't repealed until 1999).

I think some people have been trying to say this ... but I don't hear about it very much anymore (so I felt the impulse to speak). I mean, Glass Steagall is still front and center, but how its repeal destroyed our financial sector isn't discussed very much. If you listen to Wall Street analysts, they're still in total denial. They will say that if liberals win the election, the financial industry will under-perform. This is not a political endorsement (I'm really not sure if the average democrat is more or less likely to support restoring Glass Steagall, compared to the average republican), I'm just sayin, Wall Street is not acting in its long term interest.

I suppose instant gratification is something our society suffers from. I've read studies that show even the wealthy benefit when there's less wealth disparity (in terms of average lifespan, health, and most measures of quality of life). Obviously many wealthy would disagree, but their disagreement seems to be based on an intuitive knee jerk response based on very short term thinking (and it's understandable, our intuition isn't exactly equipped for long term thinking).