Big Brother and the Holding Companies

First Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch acknowledged their model of doing business was just too risky. Last night, the last two independent banks on Wall Street asked the Federal Reserve to change their status to bank-holding companies. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley will be able to take deposits, but will be subject to much greater regulation as well. Nomi Prins, a former analyst with Leman, Goldman Sachs and Bear Stearns, is author of Other People's Money: The Corporate Mugging of America.