I hope everyone watched The Warning on Frontline last night.

Brooksley Born tried valiantly to save us from the predations of the financial sector, but was beaten down by the conniving of Greenspan, Rubin, Summers, and Levitt.

Born was hauled before Congressional committees to explain why she wanted to regulate derivatives, and she answered that the unregulated derivative market posed a danger to our economy, people's jobs and their homes. For her efforts she was cast as the fool who intended to foul up the free market with needless regulation, in Greenspan's words, "... regulation for regulations sake."

Born resigned as head of the CFTC when it became clear that the old boys club would not permit her to do her job.

I'd say the rest is history except for the fact that we face an ever growing shit-storm of misery rooted in the greed and depraved indifference of that old boys club.

One of the highlights for me was Arthur Levitt's clear statement that he was wrong to join the rest of the boys in pillorying Born, he says he didn't know her, but that if he had helped instead of hindered her, they may have saved us a great deal of sorrow.

The very first thing Greenspin did when she was appointed head of the CFTC, was to call her in and explain to her that they were not going to see eye-to-eye on the topic of fraud because, as he explained, she probably thought fraud should be prosecuted and he thought the market would take care of fraudsters by itself.

What more needs saying about the origin of our economic woes, than that person who was considered our infallible financial wizard not only thought it wasn't important to prosecute fraud, but would actively interfere with anyone who did?

Greenspan, Rubin, Summers, and Levitt, with the help of Congressional accomplices like Phil Gramm nailed Born's feet to the floor and yanked the telephone wires just as the house was about to burn down.

So guess who's still in charge?

The Clinton administration comes off very poorly here--almost like a typical Republican laisser faire administration of the 1920s. Of course the real damage occurred during the Bush years where derivatives grew to $595 trillion.

To answer your question, the bad guys are still in charge, as the only member of the gang of four that beat Born up to recant (Levitt) is no longer in office. But, to be fair, even Greenspan himself said recently that if a bank is too big to fail, it's probably too big.

Sheila Bair (head of the FDIC) is on record saying that banks should not be allowed to get too big again. Well, duh, that's what the old argument against the money trust is all about... see, if you believe we should have enforced anti-trust laws and kept the nation from running after Wall Street central banking, then you are a banking conspiracy nut... never mind that the money trusts always bring about collapse and always hurt the middle and lower classes.

I'm not sure that anti-trust laws would have prevented the creation of conglomerates. I think avoiding those laws was the impetous for conglomerates in the first place.