In the aftermath of the Great Depression, an event preceded by similar excesses, the country enacted strong financial regulations, including the Glass-Steagall Act in 1933 (the law separated investment banks, which managed rich people’s money and issued bonds and stocks, from commercial banks, which are concerned with ordinary people’s money and make loans). These laws, effectively enforced, served the country well: in the decades following passage, the economy was spared the kind of financial crisis that had repeatedly plagued this country (and others). With the dismantling of these
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