With all the negative news that’s right now permeating the global financial markets – hammering stock prices – we wouldn’t blame you one bit if you wanted to stick your head in the sand.

So Alan Greenspan – former chairman of the Federal Reserve – thinks this equals the Great Crash, if not out-bads it.

Who’s to blame for the collapse in the credit markets? The Federal Reserve? President Bush? The Treasury Department?

Rick Pendergraft in Investor’s Daily Edge says the real culprit is an obscure law known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. This allowed commercial banks, investment banks and insurance companies to operate under one roof.

Had the financial service industry been kept separate, we might have avoided the worst of the worst of the credit crisis. More from Rick…

I have often commented about the problem of personal savings. We worry about the lack of savings here in the US, but many do not understand that if everyone started to save 5% of there income immediately that it would seriously impact consumer spending, pushing the US into a recession.

The federal budget deficit hasn’t received a lot of press lately, what with all the worries about the U.S. financial system, the home mortgage market, and the rescues that might be necessary to save both. In fact, it’s a bad sign, since the Bush administration and the Democrats in Congress have joint responsibility for keeping the budget deficit under control, so they would both be crowing about it if they were doing a good job.

Bank of America Corp. (BAC) shares soared yesterday (Monday) as it followed Citigroup Inc.’s (C) lead to become the fourth large domestic bank to beat Wall Street’s earnings expectations and provide hope that the battered banking industry might finally be leaving the worst of the subprime mess behind.

A “Lost Decade” doesn’t have to translate into lost profit opportunities.As the global financial crisis continues to escalate, the United States is increasingly facing the prospect of a long malaise that could easily eclipse Japan’s Lost Decade of the 1990s in both duration and depth.

If you think the “Lost Decade” Japan endured during the 1990s was deep and painful, stick around: As the global financial crisis that was jump-started by the meltdown of the subprime mortgage market continues to unwind, the U.S. economy is headed for a financial Ice Age that will make Japan’s 10 wasted years seem like a single chilly night.

Meredith Whitney, the Oppenheimer & Co. (OPY) analyst famous for her prescient financial sector calls during the ongoing banking crisis, has downgraded Wachovia Corp. (WB) to “underperform,” saying prospects are “bleak” for shareholders of the Charlotte-based commercial bank.

Speculation that the U.S. government would have to step in to bail out struggling mortgage-giants Freddie Mac (FRE) and Fannie Mae (FNM) escalated as the markets set to close for the weekend.Shares recovered slightly after Reuters reported U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke granted Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae emergency access to the Fed’s discount window.