"Prophet and Loss" Brooksley Born warned them - Stanford Alumni Magazine

[Captain_Nemo]

http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2009/marapr/features/born.html

Prophet and Loss

Brooksley Born warned that unchecked trading in the credit market could lead to disaster, but power brokers in Washington ignored her. Now we're all paying the price.

BY RICK SCHMITT


SHORTLY AFTER she was named to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 1996, Brooksley E. Born was invited to lunch by Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan.

The influential Greenspan was an ardent proponent of unfettered markets. Born was a powerful Washington lawyer with a track record for activist causes. Over lunch, in his private dining room at the stately headquarters of the Fed in Washington, Greenspan probed their differences.

“Well, Brooksley, I guess you and I will never agree about fraud,” Born, in a recent interview, remembers Greenspan saying.

“What is there not to agree on?” Born says she replied.

“Well, you probably will always believe there should be laws against fraud, and I don’t think there is any need for a law against fraud,” she recalls. Greenspan, Born says, believed the market would take care of itself.

For the incoming regulator, the meeting was a wake-up call. “That underscored to me how absolutist Alan was in his opposition to any regulation,” she said in the interview.

Over the next three years, Born, ’61, JD ’64, would learn first-hand the potency of those absolutist views, confronting Greenspan and other powerful figures in the capital over how to regulate Wall Street.

More recently, as analysts sort out the origins of what has become the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, Born has emerged as a sort of modern-day Cassandra. Some people believe the debacle could have been averted or muted had Greenspan and others followed her advice."

~snip~

"Born, who retired from her law firm in 2003, is not playing a formal role in the process. An outdoor enthusiast, she was planning a trip to Antarctica this winter, as the Obama team was settling in. “The important thing,” she advises, “is that the new administration should not be listening to just one point of view.”"

[Triana]

1. Summers, Greenspan, and Rubin silenced her - told her to STFU when she warned them of this shit

YEARS ago.

"women can't do math" insisted the Misogynist Summers, at Harvard.

Well, asshole - it appears they CAN - hella better than YOU, little man Summers.


BROOKSLEY BORN WAS RIGHT.


Thank you very little and f*ck you very much Summers, Rubin, and Greenspan.

:mad:

[Hello_Kitty]

2. OMG she really did.

And WTF do we have the same cast of characters that stifled her advising Obama? :wtf:

[Triana]

3. Exactly.

This is what has CHAPPED my ass since Obama installed freakin Summers and Geithner. Born likely wouldn't have wanted any of those jobs but hell, couldn't he find anyone better than those two Wall Street-loyal clowns? And Bernanke. Pfft. Those three stooges are naught but the gravy train straight from the Fed Treasury to Wall St.

WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF US - THOSE OF US PAYING THIS GRAVY TRAIN?

(cue crickets....)

Is he consulting with HER about this mess, at least - as an advisor if not part of the cabinet? If not, why not?

[sfbabe3]

4. SAme old cast of characters screwing us over

Here they are: Geithner, Summers, and all the friends from Goldman Sachs. Barney Franks is linked to Goldman Sachs via his partner.
We the American Public are the Screwees.

[Kaleko]

5. Some eye-opening paragraphs in that article.

A shortened version with only punchlines should really make the rounds far and wide.

Big K & R.

[Triana]

6. Absolutely. I've ranted and raved about their treatment of her on DU before...

...if those jackasses had LISTENED to her we might not be in this mess.

:grr:

[Kaleko]

7. Thou shalt not rant and rave in vain

or alone. :grr: :grr: :grr:

Gawd, I wanna kick some Greenspan ass tonight.

[Triana]

8. Oh please - lemme help you...

:evilgrin:

[slipslidingaway]

9. K&R n/t

[Ceela]

10. Wow!

That was an eye opening article! If only she hadn't been ignored :grr:

[slipslidingaway]

11. ...n/t