Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act a road to ruin

The mortgage meltdown, the foreclosure crisis, and the Wall Street collapse can be traced not only to Bush's incompetence. Another factor is the hated Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm-Leach-Bliley_Act

Introduced in the Senate by Phil Gramm (who else?), Gramm-Leach-Bliley was signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1999. Vetoing it would've been futile: The right-wing Congress had the votes to override Clinton.

The law had long been sought by the banking industry. The industry finally got its way thanks to the Contract With America - an era that was a bonanza for right-wing causes that had been previously confined to think tanks or loopy op-eds. Gramm-Leach-Bliley repealed a law that barred banks from entering investment and insurance services.

Passage of the law resulted in industrial-strength consolidation in banking and insurance. And we've seen how that's ended up.

You can argue until you're blue in the bunker about whether Gramm-Leach-Bliley should even be considered a real law. There's no question it was passed by a rogue Congress. But since America has a rogue dictator (Bush), it's enforced as if it's legit.