Meaning that the law was being flaunted by the big shots in the Clinton administration who held board seats at Citi, et al.
Yet commercial banks owning investment banks, and vice-versa, had absolutely nothing to do with the economic crisis.
"Myopic" is about the most charitable characterisation of this ridiculous assertion I can think of. Depository institutions with statutory capital requirements having capital at risk in securities markets is exactly the mechanism which nearly erased every major financial institution in the US and would have done likewise anywhere else there were similar banking capital requirements.
And acknowledging this reality doesn't even touch on the argument of how savings is turned, defacto, into risk capital by allowing savings institutions to put capital at leveraged risk in securities markets.
flaunted >> flouted.
You are so wrong. The firms that failed were NOT commercial banks that had investment arms, or investment banks that had commercial arms. Rather they were either Commercial banks that made bad loans, or investment banks that traded bad securities. The firms that had both did not fail, in fact they gobbled up the failed firms and helped to save the economy.
The banks that own investment banking operations should never, and I do mean never, have FDIC insurance, that makes the taxpayer responsible for their poor business decisions.
Fractional Reserve banking should never be subsidized via a fund that is a liability to taxpayers if they lose money.
The problems were caused by losses on mortgage holdings. Banks were allowed to hold mortgages before Glass Steagall was repealed.