» Posted by Martin Weil on May 29, 2009

Then there are the derivatives. There, Clinton pleads guilty. Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, opposed regulation of derivatives as they came to the fore in the 1990s, and Clinton agreed. "They argued that nobody's going to buy these derivatives, we'll do it without transparency, they'll get the information they need," he recalled. "And it turned out to be just wrong; it just wasn't true." He said others share blame, including credit-rating agencies that underestimated the risk. But he accepts responsibility as well. "I very much wish now that I had demanded that we put derivatives under the jurisdiction of the Securities and Exchange Commission...That I think is a legitimate criticism of what we didn't do." He added: "If you ask me to write the indictment, I'd say: 'I wish Bill Clinton had said more about derivatives. The Republicans probably would have stopped him from doing it, but at least he should have sounded the alarm bell.'"

From the Sunday NY Times.

I have said from the outset that the CFMA (Commodities Futures Modernization Act), product of Senator Phil Gramm and the Enron lobbyists, and signed into law by Bill Clinton, were, along with the gross negligence of the ratings agencies, the chief enablers of this entire credit crisis.

GOP, anyone like to step up to the plate for your share in this?

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