Political Quotes

“Mr. President, 16 years ago I wrote a cover article for the Washington Monthly magazine. The title was ``Very Risky Business,'' the subtitle, ``If we don't watch out, a new kind of Wall Street gambling--exotic derivatives trading--could shake the market and put taxpayers on the line for another bailout.'' I talked about $35 trillion in derivatives. That is now a fraction of what is out there. I talked about banks that were trading on derivatives on their own proprietary accounts. I said they might just as well have a roulette wheel or a craps table in their lobby. It is just flatout gambling, and it ought to be stopped. It is not surprising to me because I made the same point 5 years after that, when they tried to repeal Glass-Steagall--and did successfully--in order for us to compete with the Europeans. That took apart the protections that existed after the Great Depression. It was decided that we don't need those protections anymore. They took it apart. I was one of eight Senators to vote no. I warned on the floor then that another taxpayer bailout would come within a decade. It did, regrettably. Now the question is, as we put together a piece of legislation to address these issues, what do we do that doesn't have us just having a press conference to say: Look at what we did. What is it we have to do to make sure this doesn't happen again? Have we really tightened the regulations? Let me go through a couple things. Will we have dealt with too big to fail?…”