Political Quotes

On the recordMay 5, 2010
I think it's critically important as you move through this list to help people better understand exactly what it is that we're doing. One of the big issues that comes up time and time again is the issue of transparency. Because transparency was a big problem. It wasn't that the regulations didn't necessarily exist on some of these products, but people didn't know what was in the products. And so the Wall Street banks were intentionally hiding the risk associated with some of these derivative products. Derivatives by their very nature are derived from other capital. But they're critically important. They're critically important to our system, our economic system, because they provide capital investment that creates jobs in our economy. So we don't want to stop derivatives. We want to create investment vehicles. Derivatives are okay, but these investment vehicles need to be transparent. That's all we're asking through the legislation, is that the risk associated with the product be clear so that the people investing in these products know the risk associated with their investment. This is basic. This is basic finance, that people asking to invest in products should know the risk associated with those investments. That's what we're trying to achieve through the regulatory reform bill.
Said by
Steve Driehaus
Ohio

Editor's note · Context

The speaker addresses the need for transparency in derivative products and the importance of understanding investment risks.

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