+-The meltdown in the mortgage market and its impact on the credit markets may have some historical precedent; the collapse of the savings and loan industry and its subsequent government bailout in the late 1980s and early 1990s was also a major lending debacle. The collapse of the S&L industry was the result of flawed deregulation, poor regulation and reckless lending practices, which in some case, included balance sheet fraud. Political inaction, once the severity of the problem was evident, also helped led to a debacle. As part of the bailout, Congress passed legislation creating the Resolution Trust Corporation to...