President Bush has admitted that Wall Street got “drunk”. Bill Bonner says that sounds about right. But who provided the free booze?

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…

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.

After 25 years of booming asset markets, it’s getting hard to keep hold of your money, let alone grow it, says The Bullion Vault’s Adrian Ash. But if you want to steal a march, consider moving a portion of your wealth into physical gold today. Adrian says that “as long as the cost of living is rising but asset-prices are falling, that should prove a major advantage over holding bonds, stocks or cash.”

Earnings season will plug along this week as reports from several banks provide the latest insight into how well the beleaguered financial-services sector is weathering the global credit-crisis storm.