She is not a well known name, but in the late 90s this brilliant high-octane attorney & women rights advocate was the head of a small govt. agency that oversaw the derivatives market. Brooksley Born soon learned what she was supposed to oversee was an extraordinary, newly deregulated “dark market,” as inscrutable & protected as an organized crime cartel! Hidden like landmines, gambling in derivatives eventually ballooned internationally to an incomprehensible figure of $529 TRILLION!!! Do I need to say that number again??? They are now haggling in DC over less than a trillion, in a 10-yr period, to fix the entire health care system!!! & I naively wondered, before the crash, how their were suddenly thousands of billionaires.
Like James Brown, but for different reasons, Ms. Born began waking up in a “in a cold sweat.” Testifying before four gov’t committees, she warned the pols & Big Boys (Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, underling Tim Geithner; titans of the the Street & their partners in crime: lobbyists & Beltway pals) that the situation was beyond dire & could bring down the entire global financial system. This was eleven years ago. You will see it all on this extraordinary show from PBS’s Frontline: THE WARNING.
PLS WATCH…THIS IS CRITICAL since Obama has yet to reinstitute the regulations that were put into effect during the early days FDR’s presidency, more than 75 years ago. Designed to prevent this type of endgame, the laws worked! Experts say it can happen again, if action isn’t taken!!!