The Glass-Steagall repeal did happen. The failure to properly regulate derivatives markets did happen. And only in a true right-wing fantasy world would *even less* regulation lead to more smaller entities, instead of fewer bigger ones.
Not true. In Richard Feynman's memoirs (either Surely You're Joking or The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, I forget which one), he tells that after the Manhattan project, he and his colleagues were asked by managers to come up with ideas that they could patent. Feynman, half in jest, tossed up a few including "nuclear-powered aircraft" ("nuclear-powered ship" was already taken). The patents were applied for, and were awarded, and a few years later, Feynman was approached by an aircraft manufacturer, who assumed, given Feynman's name on a nuclear-aircraft patent, that Feynman was an aviation and nuclear energy expert.
Now this story is merely amusing, since even today, nuclear-powered airplanes are completely impractical, but still, I'm reminded of this anecdote whenever I hear people claiming that the phenomenon of stupid or obvious patents started only recently.
I think it's a genuinely dangerous slippery slope.
This "slippery slope" meme seems to be the libertarian's favorite argument against any legislation, but how do things actually happen in the real world? Certain people behave in ways that happen to be legal but which most of us find immoral (which, in fact, most of the perpetrators would find pretty nasty themselves, if it were to happen to them). So, we change the law and ban something. Libertarians immediately extrapolate the new legislation to a ridiculous extent (straw man argument) and thusly "prove" that even the non-exaggerated legislation is wrong. The rest of us ignore the screechy libertarians, and wait for any actual *evidence* that the new law is abused, and, lacking such evidence, sleep soundly at night. Many countries in Europe have limitations on public speech that would give a U.S. constitutional fanatic a brain embolism, and yet magically Europe persists in being a place of open discourse, not a police state. So, relax, and give some thought to the people that some of these "dangerous" laws are actually meant to protect.
The major difference between bonds and bond traders is that the bonds will eventually mature.