From the perspective of the corporate profit and loss statement, a trading loss is one expense item in the context of all revenues and expenses. So $2 billion should be compared to the bank's $26.7 billion in pretax profits for 2011, suggesting a reduction of something less than 10 percent in annual profit.

Most people know virtually no financial history, so when we have a financial crisis, it seems like it has never happened before. But it has, again and again. As Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, remarked: "About every ten years, we have the biggest crisis in 50 years." 

In "It’s Even Worse Than It Looks," congressional scholars Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution and Norman Ornstein of AEI identify two overriding problems that have led Congress — and the United States — to the brink of institutional collapse. Mann and Ornstein call on the media as well as the public at large to focus on the true causes of dysfunction.

The banking industry suffered credit crises in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. An unavoidable conclusion is that its loan loss reserves were in all cases too small. 

Sarbanes-Oxley has played a critical role in restoring investor confidence and strengthening our free market system.

As the Federal Reserve continues to take steps to boost the economy and navigate through an uncertain economic future, Allan H. Meltzer's acclaimed history of the Federal Reserve uses the past to provide lessons for today’s policymakers and scholars.

Government in general is increasingly unable to attract, retain, and motivate the kinds of people it will need to do the essential work of the republic in the years and decades ahead.

Instead of the Fed focusing on short-term goals, their focus should be on long-term inflation reduction, encouraging businesses to be more certain with their investments.