Many people, both financial professionals and commentators, have blamed the adoption of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999, which repealed the restrictions on affiliation between commercial and investment banks in the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, as an important, if not primary cause of the financial meltdown of 2008-09. Others suggest that these restrictions and separations should […]
Archives for October 2012
High Stakes Testing and the Vocational Education Debate
For the past year in almost every available venue, opponents of high stakes standardized assessments of public school student achievement have been droning on about the perceived oppression of the Texas public school accountability system, which has been rated by national education organizations as having produced the best high school graduation standard in the […]
The Fiscal Mess, the Fed, the Dollar, and Gold
A chorus of pundits, experts, and opinion pieces is growing around the need for a completely overhauled monetary and fiscal policy infrastructure for the country, and I say that we cannot move too fast to get about it. Five senior fellows at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, including former cabinet level government officials involved in fiscal […]
Finally, the End of the “Narrative”?
When I previously used the title phrase “The End of the Narrative” in January 2011, after the 2010 election rout by the Tea Party, it was accurate to an extent, but largely premature. Here is what I said then: “As we welcome the new year and a new political season, having given considerable time to […]