Barney Frank: “We are dealing with legislation today that seeks to prevent a repetition of events that caused one of the most serious…”

“We are dealing with legislation today that seeks to prevent a repetition of events that caused one of the most serious financial crises in recent times. We understand today that we are in a worldwide problem economically, with a terrible shortage of credit, with some institutions threatened. There is no debate about what is the largest single cause of that. Innovations in the mortgage industry, in themselves good and useful, but conducted in such a completely unregulated manner as to have led to this crisis... The fundamental principle of the bill... is not to put remedies into place to deal with these problems when they recur, but to stop them from occurring in the first place.”