Banking fraud still on the increase.

http://thebankwatch.com/2010/03/11/goldman-sachs-derivative-liability-33823-of-assets/

Any of the mainstreamers who "didn't see the crisis" comming are probably overlooking that the practices which brought it about have not in any way been stopped.

Goldman Sachs now operate at levels of leverage up to 38,000% against actual "wealth"

Basic history: following the 1929 crash a law was put in place in the US that severely limited the main practices that brought it about. This is called The Glass Steagal act. The main facet was dividing the functions of savings banks and investment banks. Generally, for every unit of currency actually held by a bank 10 were leant out. This is known as "fractional reserve" banking. Now, a 1 to 10 ratio is in itself fraud, but it propelled capitalism for quite a few generations with some booms/ busts, but along with Keynsiam treatments for recession there was a limit to the severity of the bust.

Under Clinton, with Greenspan controlling the Federal Reserve (which is privately owned and not federal at all), Glass Steagal was repealed. These were conidered years of economic miracle but the 1 to 10 ratio shot up. It is this factor, linked to the boom in the "derivatives market" (bets on bets on bets to the nth degree, made increasingly and rapidly by computers) that is the true cause of the financial crisis.

Put simply, fact eventually caught up with fiction, but the way out with bailouts and quantitive easing is just a further perpetuation of the fiction.

Despite some strong words Brown et al have done next to nothing to stop this, in fact they have encouraged it. Frankly, another crash at some point is inevitable.

Solutions are complicated, but a basic one is GPEW policy - that only the state should create credit and that banks should be broken up so that "too big to fail" can't happen.

banks being "too big to fail" is the given justification for the bailouts. Even the Libdems are calling for them to be broken up now. That the state should be sole creator of credit is not Marxist dogma. It was a principle of the Founding Fathers of the US.

Obama is looking at some Glass Steagal type regulations, but don't hold your breath.
Gargantuan scams beyond those I have described here continue on his watch.