Political Quotes

“I want to thank Mr. Scott for yielding the time. Mr. Speaker, derivatives are complicated things. They are probably one of the more complicated things that we deal with in this Chamber, so it is worth describing in simple terms what H.R. 992 does. It abides by principles that I think we can all agree make some sense, which are those things which contributed to the meltdown of 2008--the terrible mortgages, the derivatives that were based on those mortgages, the proprietary trading. Those things that contributed to the meltdown of 2008 should be either made unlawful or should be much more closely regulated than they were in the past; but those things that were not related in any way, shape, or form and that did not contribute to the meltdown of 2008 we should take a little lighter hand on. H.R. 992 says that those derivatives--the currency derivatives, the commodity derivatives, the equity swaps, all of these complicated things that weren't anywhere close to the meltdown of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and the challenges at Citibank and at JPMorgan Chase-- will not be subject to a very aggressive measure saying that banks cannot trade in those derivatives. Now, banks trade in derivatives because they support their clients and trade. I emphasize ``trade'' because one of their clients will borrow $100 million to build in Japan. That exposes him to yen risk. Maybe I don't want to take yen risk, and maybe the same guy who lent me the money can help me offload that risk.…”