In extraordinary news, one of those who help create our megabanks, Sandy Weill of Citigroup, now says they should be split into investment bank and banking units. Sandy Weill created Citigroup as we know it today. As their CEO he lobbied hard in 1998 for the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act which mandated that deposit banks be separate from investment banks. But he has now come full circle and is, in effect, calling for Glass-Steagall to be re-instituted.
More about breaking up the banks at my article on IVN.
At least there is one person who had a hand in creating part of the mess is trying to have a hand in cleaning it up. That’s refreshing to say the least. Usually these people are pushing to keep the mess as it is because they are still profiting from it. Honestly why can’t corporations just do the right thing and break themselves up and make sure they’re still able to provide the services they do and keep those interests separate from each other when there is a clear conflict of interest between the two? Why must there be regulation to force them to do the right thing time and time again? If Google just did the right thing like it claims it’s trying to do with search for all it’s other products, we wouldn’t hear about Google collecting Wi-Fi data while they were taking pictures for their street views on Google Maps or that they were fined half a billion dollars for violating US pharmaceutical advertising laws on purpose, or even that the FTC is looking into Google’s practice of promoting it’s own websites above the rest, simply because it can, not because their sites play by the same rules as they make everybody else play by.