I realise this is /r/movies, so sorry for bringing up politics

how can anyone morally argue for deregulation.

I'll give you an eccentric, libertarian perspective (that I used to believe).

• Finance is shifting money from those who have it to those who need it. It should be a dumb commodity, with very low profits.

• Clearly it isn't. This is because of regulation. Complying to regulation cost a lot and is an enormous barrier to entry. This keeps innovative small companies out.

• Similarly, firms have to get bigger to comply with ever more regulation, (assuming compliance costs increase slower than revenue does, which I think is fair).

• Moral hazard.

  • People assume their deposits are safe (people only take as much responsibility as you give them). They're not going to double check what BoA is doing with their money, because that responsibility has been left to the regulator & government deposits insurance. No commercial bank competes on low risk.
  • Government won't let banks fail. Would you behave differently if there was zero downside?

• The price of money matters. Just as messing with the corn price has unintended consequences, leaving the interest rate to central banks (as opposed to the market) will have unintended consequences –like the housing bubble. (see Austrian Business Cycle theory, even among libertarians, Austrians are seen as eccentric).

All this creates perverse incentives, that leads to bankers doing fucked up things to make money.

Peter Schiff (a major proponent of this theory) says: "the government served up the liquor, the finance industry drank it."

Anyway, I'm selling it short but that's part of the argument. Schiff is the man if your interested in this alternative explanation for '08.