glass-steagall act

This week, the government took a big first step toward shutting down the Can't Lose Room in the Wall Street Casino. It's now one comment period away from enacting the Volcker Rule, which limits the kinds of risky investments banks can make with money insured by the U.S. taxpayer.

Some top financial institutions are moving surprisingly quickly to change how they operate. Question is: Did the financial reform law force their hands, or is this just a good time for big banks to rethink their business?

Dodd's soon-to-be-unveiled proposal appears to have a fatal flaw: It enshrines the notion that it's good to have banks that are Too Big to Fail (TBTF). It'll likely propose an alphabet soup of regulators who'll be infighting too much to notice when a giant bank is about to blow.

President Obama's banking plan is the most far-reaching proposal since the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which was meant to safeguard the US financial system. The law separated commercial banking from investment banking, resulting in a spike in dealmaking. Obama's plan is likely to do the same.

Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker's won a major battle in his crusade for banking reform when President Obama announced his support for Volcker's plan to restrict the size and activities of the largest U.S. financial institutions.

If you're of a certain age or enjoy watching TV Land, you know who Wayne Rogers is -- an actor famed for his role as Trapper John in the 1970s TV series M*A*S*H. But if you watch Fox Business News, you may also know him as a regular guest on the series Cashin' In. Now, instead of saving lives on...

How can the U.S. solve its systemic banking issues? If you're former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker (pictured) or Bank of England Governor Mervyn King, your answer would be: Let's split up the banks. Volcker would like to see some form of a Glass-Steagall-like bill passed to reconstruct the...

To rein in Wall Street, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker wants to see the return of discarded reforms first implemented during the Great Depression, he told a congressional committee Thursday. Volcker, who famously conquered the sky-high inflation of the late '70s and '80s when he led...

One of the biggest changes in the banking industry after the Great Depression was the separation of commercial and investment banking. It took the form of the Glass-Steagall Act, which went into effect in 1933. Glass-Steagall led to the separation of JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Morgan Stanley (MS),...

Economists, investors, and business executives alike certainly hope there's progress on a variety of fronts -- fiscal stimulus, trade, banking regulation -- at the G-20 summit. Regardless of that progress, though, the United States should move forward with one critical reform: re-regulating the...