"“It’s all right to let Wall Street bet each other millions of dollars every day but why make these bets affect the fellow who is plowing a field out in Claremore, Oklahoma?”

My all time favorite Cherokee, Will Rogers, wrote that in 1924. Today, most of the fellows plowing fields in Claremore, OK, are still Cherokee—but a lot fewer of them own the land they are plowing.

Nine years after Will Rogers made that complaint, the New Deal was beginning to roll, and Congress passed the Glass-Steagall Act in response. Glass (D-VA) and Steagall (D-AL) created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. In the Great Depression, when a bank went belly up your money was just gone. Even now, it’s not widely known that the FDIC does not cost the taxpayers a penny. Fees assessed on the commercial banks fund it.

Just as important, the Glass-Steagall Act created a firewall between commercial banks and investment banks. Investment banks were not insured by the FDIC, did not have to pay the assessments, and were free to gamble with the money of anybody dumb enough to entrust it to them for the purpose."

Get the Story:
Steve Russell: Will Rogers on Occupy Wall Street (Indian Country Today 11/5)

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Steve Russell: Move the Cherokee Nation forward again (10/26)
Steve Russell: The circus that has become the Cherokee Nation (9/15)