Is this what is meant by dumbing down of America???

Hey Dad, why do we save billionaires but not teachers?
EXCERPT:
It’s ironic that the battlefield in this war over resources is public education. Because the public remains entirely uneducated about the connection between those billionaires and school budget cuts. We are clueless about what the Wall Street billionaires do to earn their riches and whether it’s of any value. We might be able to understand “weapons of mass destruction,” but financial weapons of mass destruction are way beyond us.

Deliberate dumbing down of America
EXCERPT:
Let me repeat that: a catalogue of behavior modification programs! We're not talking of programs to teach students anything. We are talking about programs to indoctrinate children passing through the system to believe in values contrary to those on which this nation was based.

Gramm Leach Bliley Act
EXCERPT:
The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, (Pub.L. 106-102, 113 Stat. 1338, enacted November 12, 1999) is an act of the 106th United States Congress (1999-2001) signed into law by President Bill Clinton which repealed part of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, opening up the market among banking companies, securities companies and insurance companies. The Glass-Steagall Act prohibited any one institution from acting as any combination of an investment bank, a commercial bank, and an insurance company.

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act allowed commercial banks, investment banks, securities firms, and insurance companies to consolidate. For example, Citicorp (a commercial bank holding company) merged with Travelers Group (an insurance company) in 1998 to form the conglomerate Citigroup, a corporation combining banking, securities and insurance services under a house of brands that included Citibank, Smith Barney, Primerica, and Travelers. This combination, announced in 1998, would have violated the Glass-Steagall Act and the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 by combining securities, insurance, and banking, if not for a temporary waiver process.[1] The law was passed to legalize these mergers on a permanent basis. Historically, the combined industry has been known as the "financial services industry".[citation


Sykes report calls for new forum to self regulate financial services in UK
EXCERPT:
Sykes report calls for new 'forum' to self-regulate financial services

By Stephen Foley
Wednesday, 16 June 2004
Stop Socialism

Financial services companies must set up a system of self-regulation, with a "forum" of the great and the good to punish mis-selling, if it is to restore public trust, according to a wide-ranging critique of the industry.

Financial services companies must set up a system of self-regulation, with a "forum" of the great and the good to punish mis-selling, if it is to restore public trust, according to a wide-ranging critique of the industry.

The recommendation was the centrepiece yesterday of a report by Sir Richard Sykes, the rector of Imperial College London and the former chairman of GlaxoSmithKline, following a two-year investigation into the savings industry and the City.

Self regulation beats State control
EXCERPT:
Self-regulation beats state control
10/06/04 By: Jemima Kiss

The control and monitoring of illegal content is more effectively controlled by industry self-regulation than by state legislation, according to new research funded by the European Commission.

Issues of self-regulation for web publishers and broadcasters have been explored in a series of reports produced by the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy (PCMLP) project at Oxford University and published on selfregulation.info.