This ain't your granddaddy's credit crunch, or is it?

One can imagine that undemocratic tinkering with the lifeblood of free capitalism requires a careful smokescreen: enter bank runs and public panic.
It's interesting to note that in 1933, the United States and the world entered an era of persistent inflation. So, the effect of creating the FDIC to restore 'confidence' was to give the financial class the means to tilt the scales in their favor. It wasn't until the 1960s that this effect surpassed productivity gains and the average working stiff started to see a drop in income - far to late for the public to connect the effect with the 1913 and 1933 causes.