So huge amounts were spent on lobbying by Wall Street firms, and sure enough the barriers began coming down, with Congress repealing the entire Glass Steagall Act in 1999.
The steady reduction of barriers since WWII, and especially since the fall of the Berlin Wall, has led to an unprecedented expansion of global prosperity.
And when the Wall finally crumbled and Germany was reunited, she broke barriers of her own, becoming the first East German -- and the first woman -- to become chancellor of Germany.
Daily deals once excited Wall Street because of their high margins, but low barriers to entry invited a raft of competition from related businesses, which forced a re-rating of Groupon and the industry as a whole.