When it comes to banking and money, the four most dangerous words in the world are, "This time, it's different." Take two of the world's bigger business stories: the overnight collapse of Barings PLC, the big British banking house, and the current push in Washington to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 so that commercial banks and investment-banking houses can poach on each other's turf without restriction. What do these two events have to do with each other? Simply this: the collapse of Barings, which was done in by a rogue 28-year-old futures trader in Singapore, is living proof of why ending Glass-Steagall could unleash financial disasters that would make the S&L industry collapse look like a walk in the park.
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