The more things change...

I honestly don't see how anyone can read history and come away with a utopian notion that man or his society is perfectable. We keep doing the same stupid things over and over, just under different names. Nearly 200 years ago:

The United States was already creating for itself a reputation for massive borrowing against its limitless future. That meant a need for large numbers of banks, and they duly sprang up, good, bad, and indifferent (mostly the last two). ... Each state bank was allowed by the state legislature to issue bills up to three times its capital. But in practice there was no check on these issues. Hence, in good times at least, to get a charter to found a state bank was literally a license to print money...

The remedy of Congress proved worse than the disease. It created (April 10, 1816) the Second Bank of the United States, bought 20 percent of its stock, and stipulated that the federal government appoint five of its twenty-five directors, but made little provision for supervising its operations. Moreover, its first president, William Jones, knew little about banking; his specialty was having dubious friends.

- From "A History of the American People," by Paul Johnson (p. 285)

Like today, the book also mentions "sensible men warned what would happen..."