Led by Nicholas F. Brady, who was later Treasury secretary under President George H.W. Bush, that body revealed previously unsuspected causes of the crash and suggested specific reforms. It produced fundamental changes in market trading.

Other blue-ribbon panels produced similar or even greater results:

• After the 1929 crash, the Pecora Commission made withering conclusions about bankers and the regulatory system. Its recommendations fundamentally shaped the U.S. banking system and markets for decades.


• After waves of scandals wracked trading in over-the-counter stocks and the American Stock Exchange, the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1961 appointed a commission led by Milton Cohen, a lawyer and securities authority who had been one of the S.E.C.'s first officials when the agency was created. Its report voluminous report caused radical reforms, including for the first time imposing registration and disclosure requirements for O.T.C. companies.


• After the 1980s savings-and-loan crisis, Congress established the National Commission on Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement. Its report heavily faulted S&L regulatory agencies for having helped cause the crisis, and recommended significant accounting changes.

Other panels, of course, have been formed after nonfinancial crises, including the commission that reviewed the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. They also have been lauded for fact-finding and recommendations that likely wouldn't have been possible otherwise.

Why no move by Congress to establish a panel? A spokesman for Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, says this time around there's no need for an independent commission.

"We're way beyond it," he said. "We know what's happened."

Frank's spokesman contends the crisis was mainly caused by seven years of a Republican Congress and a Republican president, which opposed heightened regulation of the financial industry.

Frank and fellow Democrats already have responded with the legislation needed to address what they contend are inadequacies in government oversight and laxness by lenders.

President Bush has concentrated on stimulating the economy and bringing relief to homeowners facing foreclosure. Publicly, there hasn't been any talk of establishing a commission. The White House has been notably averse to steps that might lead to more regulation of business—or cast blame on administration appointees.