I am wondering what is the explanation that the ‘subsequent research’ offered for the bank failures of the 20′s and 30′s? If it was incorrect to attribute the failures to a lack of separation between commercial and investment banking, what did they find to be the cause?

John, the Constitution also empowers the Congress to declare war; that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea for the Congress to exercise this power. Why not view the power to coin money in the same way?

If banks were treated like other businesses, allowed to prosper or fail on the merits of their ability to satisfy customers, rather than protected from failure by the government, it is possible that we wouldn’t be in the fix we are today.

By eliminating the possibility of failure, the government encouraged unwise practices that eventually failed with dire consequences for many while protecting the very ones who created the mess.

Article I Section 8 of our Constitution gives Congress the authority to “coin Money, [and] regulate the value thereof…” Furthermore Section 10 of the same article prohibits the states from coining money. To eliminate government from banking without setting a dangerous precedent of constitutional usurpation seems impossible to me.

Government regulation of banking has grown too large with the inception of the Fed and, as this article points out, interventionist acts like Glass-Steagall. Government’s intervention in banking should be limited to the powers delegated to it by the Constitution. Government should coin money and determine what the value of it will be, anything more than that is a violation of Congress’s constitutional authority.