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established the federal deposit insurance corporation and included banking reforms, some designed to control speculation. Repealed in 1999, opening the door to scandals involving banks and stock investment companies.

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Two separate United States laws are known as the Glass-Steagall Act. The Acts (Glass & Steagall) were both reactions of the U.S. government to cope with the economic problems which followed the Stock Market Crash of 1929.

Both bills were sponsored by Democratic Senator Carter Glass of Lynchburg, Virginia, a former Secretary of the Treasury, and Democratic Congressman Henry B. Steagall of Alabama, Chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Currency.

The first Glass-Steagall Act allowed the government obligations as well as commercial paper to be used as reserve in banks

The second Glass-Steagall Act, passed on 16 June 1933, and officially named the Banking Act of 1933, introduced the separation of bank types according to their business (commercial and investment banking), and it founded the Federal Deposit Insurance Company for insuring bank deposits.^{[citation needed]}

Literature in economics usually refers to this simply as the Glass-Steagall Act, since it had a stronger impact on US banking regulation.^{[citation needed]}

On November 12, 1999, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. One impact of this repeal is that certain advisory activities of the banks are now regulated by the Investment Advisers Act of 1940.

The Emergency Banking Relief Act of 1933 is often confused with the Glass-Steagall Acts, however it was a separate and independent bill.

Signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on March 9, 1933, the Act's primary function was to prohibit the hoarding of gold coins, and did so by authorizing the United States Treasury to request all people and companies of the U.S. to send in their gold reserves.

In addition, it ordered that all banks stopped doing business until the Comptroller of the Currency had examined the soundness of such banks and had approved reopening.

• On the systematic dismemberment of the Act from PBS Frontline
• Back to the Twenties Through the Looking Glass - Steagall Hour long Wizards of Money MP3 explaining the Glass-Steagall Act, background to it and impact of it.