On the recordMay 4, 2010
The interesting thing is the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which now on the Senate side is being billed as a bureau within the Fed, was really the brainchild of Professor Elizabeth Warren from Harvard Law School. And she likened it to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which we have. I mean you buy a toaster. It's warranted to operate, not to electrocute you. And yet we have nothing of the same nature to protect us as consumers from fraudulent techniques that are being used by credit card companies, by mortgage brokers. This one chart that showed this CDO, this was $38 million. It was actually sold and resold 30 times, 30 times, and created losses of over $280 million. Now, derivatives haven't been regulated in this country because Congress passed a law in 2000 prohibiting Congress from regulating derivatives. It was part of the financial services industry wish list, and none of us were there at the time.
Source
govinfo.gov
