 Those organizations strove successfully to cut taxes (estate and capital gains taxes) and tax rates for the wealthy, and to eliminate or prevent any countervailing power or oversight of corporate managers—including private litigation, efforts to empower boards of directors and shareholders, the regulation of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and labor unions.The action in financial markets, corporate governance, industrial relations, and taxation, came from both changing policy and preventing it from being changed -- "drift".Policy changes include tax cuts and legislation such as the 1999 Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act that repealed the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act and allowed the merger of consumer banks, investment banks, and insurance companies.