Free Republic

"At today’s Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission hearing, Brooksley Born, the former head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, declared Alan Greenspan’s tenure at the Federal Reserve an unmitigated failure – to his face. Greenspan accords a certain degree of respect on Capitol Hill, despite Born’s accurate take on his many failures, and so this outburst was highly unusual – and gratifying. Born, who pushed to strictly regulate derivatives under the Clinton Administration, but lost the battle to, among other people, Alan Greenspan, told the former Federal Reserve chair that his agency “failed to prevent housing bubble, failed to prevent the...

Brooksley Born wants the public—and Wall Street—to understand unregulated derivatives’ role in the crisis.At yesterday’s Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission hearings, Brooksley Born, one of the 10 commissioners on the Congressional panel, didn’t use her time taking cheap shots. Born, who ran the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) under President Clinton, asked modest questions of Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein. The details that she tried to uncover are the financial crisis, distilled. Born confined her questioning to inadequately regulated, or “over the counter,” derivatives. It’s easy to see derivatives as peripheral to the “mortgage crisis,” but they were actually central to...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will on Monday provide details about the government's latest plan to help rid banks of toxic assets clogging the financial system. The Treasury Department said in a press release that it will hold the briefing at 8:45 a.m. EDT on Monday. The Treasury Department's program involves setting up a new investment fund to buy mortgage-related securities and other assets weighing down bank balance sheets. The new Public Private Investment Program would combine taxpayer money with private funds, aiming to buy loans and free up banks to renew lending. The Wall Street Journal...