Sunday 2 May 2010

1999: while America pondered the stains on a dress



Watching the international financial system unravel, it is imperative not to see it as some kind of unforeseeable 'act of God', but rather to understand how it happened, and why. Some people will say it's been caused by greed, which is about as meaningful as saying human nature caused it, one step away from declaring 'we're all to blame'. No, it is not caused by greed, but the absence of effective regulation. Such regulation existed, but it was dismantled by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 (inter alia).

Watch Senator Byron Dorgan from 1999, explaining to us what is to come, because now it has come, and he's chillingly accurate.

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