Interactive Timeline on History of Regulation, Deregulation, and Economic Crisis

For eight years, President Bush and his Republican allies looked the other way as Wall Street and big banks exploited loopholes and ignored growing problems in the financial sector. As a result they did not protect America’s families and small businesses from the impending financial crisis. This failure to regulate financial markets let Wall Street and the big banks gamble with our money and compromise our future, our savings, and the American Dream. We know what happened: the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. During the Great Depression, Congress enacted critical legislation to protect consumers and keep big banks accountable. Over the next 60 years, the United States sustained its longest period of economic growth. That growth continued until we began to unravel those regulations and look the other way as Wall Street found ways to get around them. Now, House Democrats have passed legislation that will keep big banks and Wall Street from gambling with our future.

Click on the image above for details about the history of regulation, deregulation and economic crisis in this country.