Every day that goes by without changes to our financial system and without new regulations only feed the fears of many people, and not just Glen Beck followers. The President and our Congress seem to have passed the issue to the Federal Reserve and our Big Banks. They don't have the appetite or the will power to deal with it.
As reported in the New York Times editorial page, today, "The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, created by Congress to examine the causes of the crisis, held its first public meeting last week. In his opening remarks, the chairman, Phil Angelides, a former California state treasurer, likened the group’s potential impact to that of the Pecora hearings in the 1930s, which examined the stock market crash of 1929 and led to transformational changes in banking, investing and financial regulation.
And yet, last week’s meeting was oddly inauspicious, feeding doubts about the commission’s ability to realize that potential."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/opinion/20sun1.html?adxnnl=1&ref=opinion&adxnnlx=1253444522-0cnS5440sUzjxmOua8udRQFurthermore, they say, " The meeting itself was mainly prepared statements from commission members, describing the group’s mission and expressing their commitment to a full investigation. In their more enlightening moments, some of the commissioners previewed specific concerns to pursue — like the role in the crisis of derivatives, of Fannie Mae and other too-big-to-fail institutions, and of the Federal Reserve and other regulators.
But the real work — gathering documents and taking testimony from financial executives and government officials — will not start before November. Public hearings are not expected until December. A final report is due to Congress on Dec. 15, 2010."
The Congress does not seem able to deal with such a monumental problem. They are prepared to let the financial system fix itself. Without strict regulations, and the sooner the better, the banks and investment firms will backslide back into the river of denial and greed. The President is not leading on this issue.