Political Quotes

“Thank you. As I said, I have no objection to basic derivatives. It is when these derivatives get out of hand; it is when you have a derivative on a derivative on a derivative and on and on and on. That is what is happening in the derivatives markets. So, despite the usefulness of derivatives in certain cases, it got out of hand. The bill we reported out of the Agriculture Committee will bring all of these transactions into the light of day. No more behind the scenes; derivatives would be reported to regulators in real time. It would bring the vast majority of these into clearinghouses and exchanges. It would help to reduce the concentration of risk and bolster public transparency. The legislation we are trying to bring to the floor that the Republicans keep blocking gets to the heart of the too-big-to-fail problem by prohibiting swaps entities from also being commercial banks. A commercial bank backed by the government or the FDIC should not be able to use that government backing to support high- stakes gambling. That only magnifies the level of risk in the banking system. It is unfair to taxpayers, bank customers, and community banks. I met in my office yesterday with some of the community banks in Iowa. They don't deal in swaps and derivatives. They take deposits, they loan them out for business starts, people who need a loan for different things. They are not dealing in swaps and derivatives, so why should we allow these big banks on Wall Street to do it?…”