In the fall of 1970, I enrolled in a course about the economy as part of my major at South Dakota State University. The class was called "Money and Banking" and was taught by a professor by the name of Limen T. Smythe. He said something then that has stayed with me for more than 50 years.
"The entire banking system is a sham", he said, "and could come tumbling down at any time if people stop believing their money is safe." Well, it's happened several times since then, the latest being the failure of Silicon Valley Bank. Before then it was the Global Financial Meltdown of 2007 and 2008. Banks were lending to people who they knew were unable to pay the money back - why? Because their commissions were so fat and the temptation was so great that they succumbed to one of the most diabolical tendencies that humans have been saddled with - greed.
This was all possible because of the lack of accountability by government agencies that were largely stripped of their power during the Reagan Administration when the president deregulated the savings and loan industry.
You simply can't have a system based on trust and expect it to survive and flourish without oversight. People aren't wired that way and until we can rein in the power brokers who pull the levers in corporate America, failures will continue to occur and innocent people will suffer. It's as simple as that.
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