2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Please stop telling me I'm voting for Sanders because I'm a purist who wants a pony. [View all]jwirr
(39,215 posts)one would be stopped from investing in risky transactions IF they want to with their own money. But Glass-Steagell would not allow the banks to use our money to do that. Investors may still want to invest overseas but it would be the investor that made this decision not the banker who can take everything in his bank and make the gamble.
When we had small local banks under the Glass-Steagell act those banks had to keep depositors money in the community. This did three things - it protected the depositor, stimulated investment in the local community and kept FDIC viable. Also back then if a bank went down it was one small bank not the whole system. Today as we saw in 2008 if the big bank goes down everyone loses, much of the money is invested overseas anyhow and the FDIC could not cover the huge problem with the big banks so we ended up adding money for a bailout.
I do not see how this is a pony. This is common sense.