How we got to this point

Ben Stein explains the current mess on Wall Street, which he attributes to a too cozy a relationship between the wirehouses and the SEC. He concludes:

It looks to me as if the inmates are running the asylum. One truth, that deregulation is sometimes a good thing, has been followed down so long and winding a road that it has led to an immense lie: that deregulation carried to an extreme will not lead to calamity.