Bring back Glass-Steagall

I feel one of the first things we can do to fix the economic mess we got into is to bring back the Glass-Stegall Act. You maybe wondering "what in the hell is the Glass-Steagall Act?" The Glass-Steagall Act was enacted in 1933 during the bank crash of the Great Depression. Sound Familiar? In this act the FDIC (Federal Insurance Deposit Corporation) was set up along with other banking regulations. One of the major pieces of regulation was to separate commercial bank functions from securities firms. This basically pushed the dominoes far enough apart where if one fell it didn't knock the others over.
     If you are my age or older you remember when you parents used a home-town bank for their checking and saving accounts. If they wanted to invest in the market, they went to a local broker. When they wanted life insurance, you obviously went to your neighborhood insurance agent. Remember when Visa and Mastercard weren't Bank of America Visa cards or Wells Fargo Mastercards.
     This all changed in 1999 when the Graham-Leech-Bliley Act was passed and signed by Bill Clinton. The final version of this bill passed the senate 90-8, so it was not a Democrat or Republican thing. This was a Wall St. thing. This act basically overturned Glass-Steagall and unregulated the banks. This led to mergers of the big financial institutions like Travelers Insurance with Citigroup and Bank of America with Meryll Lynch. Now you can deposit a check, get a home loan, buy stock, all while shopping at a chain grocery store. This is real convenient but it also pushed those dominoes real close and we saw how that worked out in 2008.
      I feel its time to go back to Glass-Steagall. There should be no reason why my money should get intangled with some traders credit default swap. If you don't believe its happening then ask the former clients of MF Global. Down below are some helpful links if you want to learn more about Glass-Steagall.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Act#Leach_and_Rubin_support_for_Glass-Steagall_.E2.80.9Crepeal.E2.80.9D.3B_need_to_address_.E2.80.9Cmarket_realities.E2.80.9D

http://finance.laws.com/glass-steagall-act

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Glass-Steagall_Act.aspx

Thanks,
Platt Robertson
Write-in Presidential Candidate