CORNERING THE MILLENNIUM WITH A NEW ROUND OF MONOPOLY

Who's Afraid of a Big Bad Depression?
Not the last crop of 20th century U.S. politicians! The big money is banking on mega-mergers and Washington has obliged. "Depression Era Rules Undone," the New York Times declared after the signing of the Financial Services Modernization Act on 11/12/99. The new law permits mergers of banks, securities firms, and insurers by repealing parts of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act that sought to prevent a repeat of the Crash of '29 and the ensuing Great Depression (when the new game of Monopoly had a satiric edge). Obviously, millennial oblivion replaces memories of hard times, at least for the high rollers...and the politicians who have gone along for the ride.

Image sources: news photo by Justin Lane for the New York Times, 11/13/99; Migrant Mother, 1936, by Dorothea Lange for the New Deal RA/FSA, recently reissued in stamp form by the USPO; Disney's Three Little Pigs, 1933; Monopoly by Parker Brothers (invented by Charles B. Darrow in 1933).

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