Thanks for the kind wishes, and may the season be a joyful one for you and yours.
GW Bush did anything but protect Neil.
Neil paid fines as proscribed by law, and is barred from serving int he banking industry for life. He has not been restored to favor and the shame of his mistakes are reconstructed to this day. Not much protection.
The insider loan decisions he was accused of making were not robbing.
The style of banking that Neil did was very prevalent at the time he did it. His punishment was about average for what people at his level did.
The banking crisis that grew into the S&L crisis had many causes and was not caused by the simple greed of a few alone, much less by the Bush family. Pres. GW Bush, in his structure and management of the RTC (the REsolution Trust Corp., designed to liquidate and resolve the S&L financial debacle) saved this country's tax payers many billions of dollars. The work of the RTC went so well that it terminated years earlier than projected.
As to the confederacy, my study of history has led me for many years to be against the secession they tried, and goals for which they fought.
In my youth, this cost me a certain amount of friction with some elderly members of my family, who had a more personal view of the Civil War.
My hero regarding the confederacy is Sam Houston, who rather than sign a loyalty oath to the confederacy, chose instead to be removed from the Governorship of Texas. He believed that secession and the confederacy were terrible ideas and acted on that belief. I admire him and agree with him on that.
Regards,
Ed