600,000 Signatures for Glass-Steagall

This month, Americans for Financial Reform and our allies — including Public Citizen, CREDO, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Dr. Mitchell Gershten (a private citizen), and MoveOn.org — reached an incredible milestone: more than 600,000 people signing petitions of support for the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act.

For over half a century, the Depression-era law known as Glass-Steagall kept traditional banks separate from the high-risk world of investment banks and hedge funds. Uncle Sam agreed to insure our deposits. And the banks, in return, agreed not to use those deposits for gambling in the Wall Street casino. That all changed with the industry-backed deregulation of the 1980s and ’90s. Once again, banks gained the ability to play risky games with government-backed funds, setting the stage for the financial and economic meltdown of 2008.

READ MORE: Huffington Post