2008 will be remembered as the time law and order was imposed on the  financial institutions and individuals in the banking and investment sector.

Do you remember CODs and ABCPs. Basically, these were junk securities sold as paper gold. Their status is now reduced to toilet paper. 

Until 2008, U.S. banking was whatever you could get away with. If the suckers bought into the not so hot subprime mortgages, it was their  fault.

If financial stocks could be bought and sold cheaply, then the hedge fund guys could still make money in a bear market. Who cares about the U.S. financial system?  If there's profit to be made off of a company that's a loser, why not make it?

Well the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Government stepped in to stop the abuses.

Both presidential candidates blamed each other for the mess. Comments were made about "putting lipstick on pigs". Are the pigs Wall Street bankers or politicians?