Peoples current infatuation with the right wing is the result of collective amnesia.

The great depression was brought about mainly because of lack of regulation. Without regulation the market is taken over by con artists, speculators, and gamblers. There are great highs, horrible lows, banks have no safeguards and your money can disappear overnight. Regulation smooths out those highs and lows, keeps banking from making terrific mistakes that can cost you your entire savings. Most regulations were put there because of a need and without them, no one is safe from crooks. Imagine waking up tomorrow to find the banks all closed and your jobs gone. That is what lack of regulation can bring you. Inflation and deflation are nothing compared to that.

The government’s job is to protect the ordinary citizen, not just from terrorists, or attacks from other countries, but also from the wealthiest among us, and to do that we need regulations. Without regulations the wealthy have all the power and they aren’t afraid to abuse it . Most countries in the world do not protect their ordinary citizens and that is why our system has worked better.

The savings and loan debacle was the result of the removal of many of the regulations put in after the ’29 market crash. The presidents after Carter and their congresses have been chipping away at the regulations that worked for all the years after the great depression. We currently are approaching that point again because, in essence, we have no regulations with the current occupant of the White House, since he refuses to follow the laws that he doesn’t like, and his administration has been allowed to do the same. There is now, little or no enforcement in place. The current housing crisis is, at least partly due to rules that have either been removed or ignored. There use to be usury laws to keep interest rates from being exhorbitant, on things like credit cards. There used to be caps on how much the interest could go up in a year on flexible rate mortgages. People were not allowed to borrow on things they couldn’t afford. All those regulations, gone or ignored.