A look at the disadvantages of a firm's having too much liquidity, explaining that when a company has a great deal of its worth tied up in liquid assets, it has a harder time attracting investors, who must be convinced that the firm's managers will not "take the money and run."

An explanation of how the Glass-Steagall Act, passed to prohibit U.S. commercial banks from engaging in investment banking activities, has led to the same costly cat-and-mouse game between banks and their regulators as did the prohibition against interstate banking, and an argument that...