On the recordMay 12, 2010
let me begin by expressing my gratitude to Senator Lincoln of Arkansas and Senator Chambliss of Georgia and members of their committee for their tremendous work. In fact, there is some overlap in membership. I think a couple members of the Banking Committee are also members of the Agriculture Committee. I know how hard they have worked on what is such a critically important piece of this legislation. It is probably an area with which a lot of people are not terribly familiar. A lot of the language we use in describing this area of the bill sounds pretty foreign to a lot of people, but it is terribly important we get this right, for reasons I will try to briefly explain this afternoon. For many Americans who aren't necessarily experts on our financial system, this is one of the most confusing parts of our work, but it is also incredibly important in terms of our overall reform of the financial system. People ask me: What is a derivative? It is a fancy word, 'derivative.' Really, what it amounts to, in simple terms that most Americans can understand is, it is a bet. It is a wager, in a sense--an important wager but nonetheless a wager.
