This article traces the history of the growth and regulation of banking services in the United States. That history will show how the existing regulatory structure was developed in response to demands of the Civil War and a populist crusade against the “money trust.” That effort reached its...

The 2000 presidential election focused attention on an idea that has been surfacing for some time--the privatization of Social Security. Although opposition remains fierce, proposals for privatization have been gradually gaining acceptance as the inadequacy of benefits from the present system...

The phenomenal growth of derivative financial instruments has sparked a near revolution in finance. These instruments take many forms and come in literally hundreds of varieties. Some, such as commodity futures and options, are heavily regulated when they are traded on organized exchanges. Other...

In theory, the commodity futures markets are the essence of competition. All orders are required to be exposed to trading pits where traders vie competitively and aggressively to assure the best possible execution price. On the surface, as observed from the exchange galleries or on television,...

On ‘Black Monday,’ October 19, 1987, ‘perhaps the worst day in the history of U.S. equity markets,’ the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 508 points, representing a loss of approximately $1 trillion in the value of all outstanding United States stocks. In the wake of the crash,...