Drexel University's LeBow College of Business and the Global Independence Center (GIC) jointly presented the 27^th Annual Monetary and Trade Conference on April 30. After the collapse of several key financial institutions, industry leaders gathered to discuss what changes needed to be made going forward to resolve the current crisis and prevent another one in the future. The keynote address was delivered by William Poole, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Poole, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, presented "Saying Goodbye to Too Big to Fail." His presentation covered the failure of the banking system as well as his opinion on what needs to chance in order to prevent banks from growing and becoming more of a liability than an asset to the economy. "We need to require all the banks to have a substantial block of subordinated debt in their capital structure," he said.

Many other banking and financial industry experts spoke at the event, including Chris Whalen and Nancy A. Bush, who presented a "Banking Industry Analysis"; Chris Whalen, Managing Director of Institutional Risk Analytics, who presented "The U.S. Banking Industry Post Bailout"; and Nancy A. Bush, CFA, NAB Research, LLC, who presented "Creative Destruction in the Banking Industry: What's Left and What's Next...".

Barry Ritholtz, CEO, Director of Equity Research, Fusion IQ, spoke about how greed and easy money corrupted Wall Street and its effects on the world economy. Bob EisenBeis, chief monetary economist with Cumberland Advisors, presented "Are Things Really that Bad?" and Diane Swonk, chief economist with Mesirow Financial, presented "Searching for a Bottom."