<p>It was basically because of the deregulation of the economy and banks freely giving out money and charging high interest rates and consumer’s inability/incompetency to pay their mortgages. Now, the government is trying to buy this bad credit, bailout bill, but if it fails in Congress I doubt things will get better, only worse. Eventually, I see this country getting more fiscally liberal. There will definetly be more regulation just like commercial banking, I doubt investment banking will even exist because it’ll probably combine with commercial banking, it already has so that’s pretty much it.</p>