*Texas Straight Talk, by Congressman Ron Paul, January 20, 2010:
 

''Last week, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission kicked off their first round of hearings on the causes of the economic meltdown on Wall Street.  The commission is being compared to the the Pecora Commission launched in 1932 to investigate the causes of the Great Depression.  The Pecora commission is beloved by those who believe the solution to every problem is more laws because it was used to justify a number of new laws, including Glass-Steagall.  Of course, none of those laws addressed the real causes of the Great Depression.   It was the introduction of unsound monetary policy and central economic planning pursued by the Federal Reserve that really threw everything off balance.  The Fed was founded in 1913 to stabilize the economy and prevent a recurrence of the short-lived Panic of 1907, but instead it promptly produced the Great Depression which lasted more than 15 years.''