Wall Street is up to its bad self, again.

[merrily]

4. We'd think that Wall Street would clean up its act?

Why on earth would we think that?

Did Wall Street clean up its own mess in 1929? Nope. FDR got Joe Kennedy, one of the most successful Wall Street messers, to advise on laws. They enacted two long securities laws, the first federal ones, and a new bankruptcy law and Glass Steagall.

The SEC was created to watchdog Wall Street and the FDIC to watch dog and insure banks, in order to get the public to trust investing and banking again. The whole shebang worked pretty well for the public. Not perfectly, but well. For the banks and Wall Street, too.

But, Carter repealed the bankruptcy law and replaced it with a code that was much friendlier to corporate officers and directors. Then, Clinton repealed Glass Steagall. Meanwhile, the SEC had been getting friendlier and friendlier with the likes of Madoff. And, duh, none of that worked very well for public. But it worked fantastically for Wall Street and the banks, which made scads of money.

Then, there was 2008.

They got the economy of several nations swirling the bottom of the commode, got bonuses for their performance, got bailed out, settled with the govt so no one could sue for their myriad mortgage misdeeds all over the nation and tried to blame the whole mess on "liar loans." And, for the past five years, they have had such low rates from the fed that they make renters who would live to buy a home weep with envy.

The above was somehow supposed to lead me to think that they were going to clean up their own act?

Bewildered.