No, of course not. Because so far, that little arrangement has been working rather well for them - they got obscenely rich, and we got the tab:
NEW YORK -- Bank of America Corp. rebuffed earlier news reports that its chairman and chief executive, Ken Lewis, intended to suggest to President Barack Obama to separate commercial and investment banking.
The Charlotte bank said in a statement, "Mr. Lewis was referring to people's understanding of banks and how they should view the difference between commercial and investment banks in terms of forming perceptions of their various activities."
The CEO "was not talking about reinstating a legal separation between commercial and investment banking," the statement said. Bank of America bought Merrill Lynch & Co., a major investment-banking and brokerage company, in January.
Mr. Lewis, and the leaders of several big banks, met with President Obama in Washington. Following Mr. Lewis' arrival at the White House, Bloomberg News reported that he said a separation of the two businesses should be considered.
The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 prohibited banks from having commercial- and investment-banking businesses under one roof, but the law was repealed in 1999 by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. The change followed the merger of Citicorp Inc. with Travelers Corp. Inc. to form Citigroup Inc.
