Bad Banks

Eliot Spitzer wonders whether investment banks do anything that helps America anymore—and, as such, whether they deserved the government bailouts they received. He gives a list of questions that the Senate and the SEC should consider, writing that “we need to get a real measure of the social value of investment banking activity and to determine whether they are fulfilling the essential capital formation and liquidity needs of the markets. We taxpayers have given them billions upon billions upon billions based on the theory that they perform economically useful activities. They need to prove that they do.”