When Washington Took On Wall Street

Pecora did not live to see the truth of his predictions borne out. Deregulation, which had begun to gather momentum in the 1970s, made enormous progress over later decades. In 1999 the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed—opening the door to the Mitchell-style fusion of commercial and investment banking (and with similar consequences). The S.E.C. in the early 2000s was significantly weakened. Inevitably, the financial crisis that began to unfold in 2008 would bring the Pecora Commission back into public visibility. It has been cited frequently as a model for exploring and confronting the financial woes of our own time, but the response of contemporary congressional investigations has been almost invisible. The current congressional inquiry into the banking industry, chaired by former California state treasurer Phil Angelides, calls itself the “Angelides Commission” in obvious homage to the Pecora Commission. So far, at least, it is an anemic copy, lacking anything like the tenacity and impact of Pecora’s investigation; instead, showboating and modestly informed members of Congress berate witnesses without eliciting any useful disclosures—only self-serving apologies. where is our ferdinand pecora? asked a headline on the New York Times op-ed page in 2009. There has as yet been no good answer.