Where's the regulation of Wall Street

With health care dominating the political drama these past few months and with the economy brought back from the precipice of a depression, what has been happening on the large banking and financial industry scene has hardly registered on the radar.

Profits are up, bonuses are returning to 2007 levels, while the expected regulations on these behemoths' financial activities,( which precipitated the financial collapse and the subsequent economic calamity) has not come to pass.

Derivatives remain unregulated and traded as before the crisis. The political will and sense of urgency is lacking to rein in Wall Street, which a year ago seemed all but inevitable, (even to them) as a consequence of their excesses that were at the heart of the financial meltdown.

Could the "masters of the universe" be blamed for their believing that no matter what they do and regardless of the dire economic consequences their "wild west" risk taking may bring about, the government will bail them out as a last resort?

At the height of the great depression and by the time of his inauguration in March 1933, FDR knew regulation of the commercial banking and financial industries had to be enacted, knowing as he did their combined deregulated activities helped precipitate the economic collapse. Thus the Glass, Steagel Act of 1933 was enacted separating the commercial banks from the financial and insurance industries. The Graham, Leach, Bliley Act of 1999 essentially overturned Glass, Steagel putting the final touches of official deregulation in place(begun in the Reagan years) that finally unhinged the banking, finance and insurance industries to wreak the havoc they precipitated and for which they were the primary perpetrators.

The lessons supposedly learned from the 1930's were subsequently ignored and brought about our present economic malaise.

Another financial and economic collapse seems inevitable in the coming years, considering the lack of political will to enact new regulations to rein in Wall Street. And why should they care. They know they can do what they want with impunity.

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future