Robert G. Wilmers, the CEO of M&T Bank for 30 years, denounced the collapse of American banking since the demise of Glass-Steagall, and demanded that it be fixed now. Wilmers, who took the bank from a $2 billion operation to today’s $68 billion, told the NY Times’ Joe Nocera that the American banking system was designed for "the prudent extension of credit that furthers commerce,« but has become »a virtual casino. To me, banks exist for people to keep their liquid income, and also to finance trade and commerce. Yet the six largest holding companies, which made a combined $75 billion last year, had $56 billion in trading revenues."

Wilmers, said Nocera, said that "banks were taking excessive risks that were never really envisioned when the government began insuring deposits.... Trading derivatives and other securities really had nothing to do with the underlying purpose of banking. He told me that he thought the Glass-Steagall act should never have been abolished and that derivatives need to be brought under government control."

In a clear reference to the do-nothing Dodd-Frank bill, and reflecting LaRouche’s view that we don’t need Wall Street’s derivative fiasco, Wilmers said : "IT DOESNT NEED TO BE STUDIED FOR TWO YEARS. I WOULD PUT DERIVATIVE TRADING IN A SUBSIDIARY AND TAX IT AT A HIGHER RATE. IF THEY FAIL, THEY FAIL.’"

Even some of the skunks are seeing the handwriting on the wall. Carl Icahn, the infamous hedge fund speculator and corporate raider, told CNBC that the next crash is imminent : "Now, will it happen next week, next year, I don’t know and certainly nobody knows, but I don’t think that the system is working properly. There’s just way too much leverage and way too much risk-taking, with other people’s money. I KNOW A LOT OF MY FRIENDS ON WALL STREET WILL HATE MY SAYING THIS, BUT THE GLASS- STEAGALL THING OR SOMETHING LIKE IT WASN’T A BAD THING. IN OTHER WORDS, A BANK SHOULD BE A BANK. INVESTMENT BANKERS SHOULD BE INVESTMENT BANKERS."

Icahn noted that the Wall Street moguls like himself were something less than human, so that government, not Wall Street, should be blamed for the disaster : "You can’t blame a tiger. If you take a fierce man-eating tiger and put him in with a lot of sheep, you can’t blame the tiger for eating the sheep. That’s the nature of the tiger, and that’s the nature of Wall Street. I’m not saying they’re bad but that’s their nature, and the government should regulate finance."