What a great story. Nobody should have been surprised by this. Go back and read what Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-ND, said on the day the Senate passed the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999.

Unfortunately, the bill was pushed through by the lackey of the banking industry, Sen. Phill Gramm, R-TX. He also sponsored and rammed through the bill deregulating derivatives. This also figured in the banking collapse. Because what these banks who made the bad loans that they knew the mortgage payers could not possibly repay, did was gamble with derivatives that the loans would fail. Banks, in effect, were acting like casinos.

There was, unfortunately, another major player and he was a Democrat -- William Jefferson Clinton. I was a Clinton backer and overall he was a good president. However, Clinton tended to be a corporatist at times.

The two worst decisions he made during his presidency was to sign the two Gramm banking deregulation bills. The other was to sign a measure to ease and greatly expand media consolidation. As a former reporter I have strong feelings about that, but I have written a lot of posts about that, so I'll leave it alone here.

Gramm soon left the Senate and became a lobbyist for Swiss giant bank UBS. The bank got into some legal problem because it hid money formany Americans from the IRS. It was one of thebanks that ended up having to get TARP bailout money,

By the way, TARP was started under George W. the Schlemiel Bush and was continued under Obama. However, some Republican lawmakers -- because it is so unpopular with the Tea Party element -- are having Alzheimer's type memory losses. But, gang, the measure was supported, pushed through and votes were rounded up for by now House Speaker John the Boner Boehner, who likes to play over 100 rounds of golf with powerful Wall Street lobbyists; Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee.

The bailout did save the banks. But it should have required with it stronger banking reforms, including the re-enctment of Glass-Steagall, and passing a law re-regulating derivative. It should also have had a provision encouraging or requiring banks to make money available under reasonable conditions to businesses. Instead greedy Republicans are not only advocating "more deregulation," but also vowing to repeal the reforms passed by the last Congress. Don't they ever learn. They want to go back to the failed policies the Schlemiel used to mismanage us into the great economic mess they now say they want to clean up.

By the way, Gramm is one of those Republican hypocrites and power player who moves in and out of government carrying the corporate interests with him. He was a conservative Democrat until it became acceptable in Texas to become a Republican. He spent the Vietnam War being an economics professor, but had no hesitation calling Clinton "a draft dodger."

While he was a UBS lobbyist, he became chief economic adviser to McCain in the 2008 presidential campaign. Had McCain won he would have become his treasury secretary.

These major players who move in an out of government are one of the problems why the American people get screwed. They alone justify the Occupy Wall Street Protest.

However, the bottom line is the money of corporations has totally corrupted our political system. In Citizens United, the corporate GOP majority on the US Supreme Court, has practically legalized corporate bribery. And currently a lot of that money can be distributed without even requiring disclosure.

Folks, the American people need to know this information. The corporate media pretty much shields the corporate world from too much exposure. That is why I am calling on all of you to make available and discuss the money world of corporate America on our politics. That is why articles like this plus the commentary with it need to be e-mailed to as many of your friends, relatives and co-workers as possibleu. Please ask them to do likewise and encourage them to fight back. Please give everything maximum exposure by posting such information on your website and sites of your social media sites. Please stay active, go to meetings of Democratic Clubs, progressive and liberal organizations, write letters to the editor and sign appropriate petitions. And help support Occupy Wall Street. Together we shall overcome! And yes we CAN! Ray A. Cohn

Any long term solution that continues modern casino capitalism any form is not acceptable. Capitalism IS slavery.

Of course the Glass-Steagall Act was the basis for reform after the Crash of 1929 and as FDR won after three presidents, Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover, America was ready for reform. History did repeat itself, but this time the corporations made sure that a corporate president was elected and no substantial reform took place. As we sit at home and watch the middle class disappear as 73 years have forgotten of what took place in 1933. A whole lifetime passed and the gambling with depositors money became allowable again. But the sad part about the history of all of this is that neither parties in general really ever stop the actions of deregulating the banking system.

It was a new era, but whatever happened in this new era when the 21st century arose is a period of dreadful consequences. But the real tragedy is President Clinton essentially sold the American people out. Why, we are at the will of the banks who themselves went bankrupt only to be bailed out by the system. That is the figureheads of GW Bush and Obama who used TARP essentially to do the will of the banking system.

Truly Wall St. and the Banking system is dysfunctional. It no longer serves the public and has lead to this surge of unemployment, but the main obstacle itself is the inability to reform the system, because they hold all the finances and the lobbyists who determine and have paid Congress to do their will. Truly this has to be one of the main reasons for the OWS and demonstrations throughout the United States and even spilling out into Europe. We can analyze until we have all lost our energy and the will to do anything else. We should at least vent our anger through the demonstrations and push for reform.

The reality is, we must is to get the jobs back into the public and curb this recession by empowering the working class. The working class is the soul of the tax base, not Wall St. Wall St. only works because so far they have relied upon a globalized system, however it is headed for a downfall if it continues to ravage the public in it's predatory system. As it is. interest rate is the lowest at this point and this is the time in which there is a window of opportunity to build the jobs. Sadly, the Republican and right wing system is bent upon austerity as a remedy. That will not work. Poverty is slavery. Slavery will not produce in any form any advances in technology or an intellectually competent society. It will force a system as unjust as the direction we are headed through globalization, privatization and the ownership going to the elite 1% . That is truly sad that freedom is slowing diminishing through the extremist policies pushed by the right wing and corporate system.