During the Great Depression, when confidence in our businesses and markets was all but lost, a collection of brilliant minds re-wrote the rules of our public markets.

FORBES: Why America Needs An Annual Report

Those of us who subsequently lost a large chunk of our private savings because of the unbridled deregulation of financial markets are grateful that Mr Bush was stopped from investing our pensions in collateralised-debt obligations and subprime mortgages.

ECONOMIST: Letters

When the markets crashed during the Depression and people lost their life savings, our government put in place a set of rules and safeguards to make sure that such a crisis never happened again, and then put a safety net in place to make sure that our elders would never be impoverished the way they had been.

WHITEHOUSE: President Obama at Michigan Commencement