Byron Dorgan: “I have spoken on this amendment previously and have waited patiently for several weeks to be able to have an opportunity…”

“I have spoken on this amendment previously and have waited patiently for several weeks to be able to have an opportunity to vote on it. We have not been able to get it pending. I now have it pending because I offered it as a second-degree amendment to the Grassley amendment. This is an amendment that would ban the use of naked credit default swaps. You ask, how does a credit default swap get naked? It is an exotic, new financial instrument that has been developed over recent years to be traded back and forth by the big financial institutions. In fact, 90 percent of them are traded by the five biggest financial institutions. When people say you need these--banks need these--just a handful of banks trade most of these. What is a naked credit default swap? It means someone is buying insurance against some other instrument that they have no interest in, except they want to make a wager. I have said before that I can't buy fire insurance on the house that the Presiding Officer owns in Colorado. Why? Because I don't have an insurable interest in that house.”