Phil Gramm's Anchor

Phil Gramm runs his mouth a lot about NOT instituting regulations on financial houses such as GoldmanSachs, Citi, BofA, (etc.)

That's because Phil has this....umnnnhhh....... anchor around his foot.

Radical derivative deregulation had a bastard birth: On the eve of a holiday break, Texas Senator Phil Graham attached a budget bill rider titled the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. This was done at the behest of his wife Wendy, who was a member of the Board of Directors of Enron.

What the CFMA did was create a unique financial product. Derivatives and Swaps entered a world where they were treated very differently from all other financial products. Stocks, bonds, options, futures all follow specific rules. Securitized derivative products (collaterallized paper such as CDOs, CMOs, CLOs, etc.) and Credit Default Swaps (CDSs) do not.

Gramm now attempts to defend the indefensible.

He'd be better off simply cutting the anchor free.

HT: Ritholtz