As I posted in the other thread, this kind of thing will always happen when government--the legitimate (and ideally, heavily-restricted) repository of force in a free society--is combined with business, which in a free market system is supposed to be free of all coercion.

The U.S. banking system is such a morass of regulations and restrictions, some set for the benefit of customers, most set for the benefit of bank owners, who don't want any competition and who pump a lot more cash into Washington than the customers do. The system was set up for corruption and lack of the normal checks and balances that the market provides. To make a free market painless, and free of business cycles, is a leftist fantasy. Can't be done. Companies will go broke, or be wrecked by stupid or criminal owners (Enron). Banks will fail. The stock market will go down. Attempting to make this Not Happen is like putting a penny in a fuse box, and the results are the same.

Ideally, the government should have no more to do with controlling trade than it has to do with controlling religion, and for much the same reasons. There would be no massive political "contributions" by corporations if the government was unable to interfere with the contributor's competitors, pump corporate welfare back to the contributors, or otherwise tilt the scales to the benefit of the contributor.

Remember, when the legislature is given control over buying and selling, the first thing to be bought and sold will be legislators.