The crisis cannot be blamed on deregulation: the three main post-1980 deregulations—removing Regulation Q (deposit-interest ceilings), eliminating branching restrictions (culminating in the 1994 Riegle-Neal Act), and removing Glass-Steagall barriers on corporate-securities underwriting (phased out 1987-1999)—all stabilized banking and had nothing to do with subprime; underwriting carries little risk, and standalone investment banks (Merrill, Bear, Lehman) were never covered by Glass-Steagall yet were central to the problem.