Policymakers, like generals, tend to fight the last war. So the proposed bank proprietary trading ban is puzzling to some because it wouldn't have averted the biggest blow-ups in the 2008 financial crisis.

The basic idea behind the Volcker Rule, named after its leading sponsor, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, is that banks shouldn't use FDIC-insured deposits to make big speculative bets that might result in a taxpayer (or FDIC) bailout.

But a look at the big names that failed" or were salvaged via takeover just before crashing " reveals that none was undone by what the Volcker Rule would undo.

Lehman Bros., Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch were investment banks, not commercial banks, and were not primarily capitalized with FDIC-insured deposits.

Washington Mutual, whose deposits were FDIC-insured, had made too many bad loans, and its retail clients began to bolt. [Read the full article]

Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell on Thursday vetoed a measure that would have changed the state's system of taxing oil and gas production together.

The veto, the first of the Republican's still-young administration, came one day before the scheduled start to an open season for a major natural gas pipeline being advanced by TransCanada Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. under the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act. The open season -- when shipping commitments are sought for a line -- was seen as the impetus among some lawmakers for pushing to have oil and gas production taxes separated.

The veto wasn't entirely unexpected. Parnell for months expressed skepticism about the need for the change now. His revenue commissioner, Pat Galvin, was perhaps the most outspoken critic of the change in the waning days of the recent legislative session, claiming it sent the wrong message to industry. [Read the full article]

Being the son of a multimillionaire who happens to be a former U.S. Treasury Secretary and Goldman Sachs CEO ought to be easy. When your father's net worth is estimated at more than $700 million, procuring a $16 million loan to finance the purchase of two Portland minor-league sports franchises, the Beavers baseball team and the Timbers soccer club, isn't terribly hard. However, it's a problem if Dad leads a taxpayer bailout of Wall Street just as you're trying to get taxpayer help for a new stadium.

In 2007, Merritt Paulson, now 38, bought the teams and moved to Portland. Before that, the Harvard Business School graduate and son of Hank Paulson worked in New York for a decade: first at HBO, then at the National Basketball Assn., where he helped get its cable channel off the ground and learned about the economics of sports franchises. When the Beavers were put on the block, he primed his parents for a loan. [Read the full article]

Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter signed a $18.2 billion budget into law, saying it contained some tough cuts but that the pain was fairly spread across the board.

"This budget is fair, it's thoughtful, it's responsible and it's balanced," Ritter said Thursday during a ceremony flanked by legislative leaders and members of the Legislature's Joint Budget Committee.

Schools will get $365 million, or 6.4 percent, less than they normally would have because lawmakers changed the way they interpreted Amendment 23, the voter-approved law that requires that certain parts of education funding increase each year. The cut has some school districts planning for layoffs.

About $9.4 million in savings in the prison system -- due to slower growth in the inmate population -- will be spent to open a new high-security solitary confinement unit at a new branch of the Colorado State Penitentiary, which has been on hold since the recession began. [Read the full article]