Political Quotes

“Mr. President, 8 years ago, we suffered through the worst financial crisis in generations. Millions of people lost their homes, their jobs, and their savings. Although the economy has improved under President Obama's leadership, many of those families are still struggling to recover today. Terrible subprime mortgages were at the heart of this crisis, but Wall Street invented other new financial devices, including exotic derivatives, that piled risks on top of risks in the financial market. The subprime mortgages were like hand grenades, but the derivatives packed them together and magnified the risks, turning them into giant bombs that blew up parts of the economy. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission concluded that derivatives ``contributed significantly'' to the crisis, ``amplifying'' losses many times over and exposing institutions and investors throughout the system. Do you remember the billions and billions of taxpayer dollars that Congress shoveled into AIG as part of the bailout? That was to cover the massive losses from risky derivatives that went south. In response to the crisis and the bailout, Congress dedicated an entire title of the Dodd-Frank Act to the regulation of derivatives. Congress tried to make the derivatives market more transparent so that both investors and regulators could have at least a fighting chance to identify the risks and to address them.…”