news blurb...There's been precious little financial deregulation in the past ten years.

TimesOnline:

"...the current collapse owes as much to government intrusion into the free market (the abominable hybrid of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; the regulatory requirement that banks lend money cheaply to those who couldn't afford to repay it) as it does to the madness of free market savagery.

There's been precious little financial deregulation in the past ten years. The one big piece of liberalisation - the abolition in 1999 of Depression-era legislation that separated commercial and investment banks - has been a lifesaver, enabling investment banks to save themselves by merging with, or becoming, retail banks.