Wallison on Bad Mortgages

AEI Event: "Is Deregulation a Cause of the Financial Crisis?" January 23, 2009 http://www.aei.org/event/1862

During the 2008 campaign season, the Democrats blamed the financial crisis on Republican deregulation, in particular the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 (GLBA) and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (CFMA). The GLBA repealed the provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 that prevented affiliations between commercial and investment banks, and the CFMA, among other things, exempted credit default swaps and other derivatives from regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Although both acts were backed by the Clinton administration, Senator Phil Gramm (R-Texas)--then the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee--was the key congressional sponsor of the legislation. Is it plausible to connect the GLBA and the CFMA with the current financial crisis? Former senator Gramm addressed these and other questions. Peter J. Wallison and others responded.

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News & Politics

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• Peter Wallison
• AEI
• financial crisis
• housing bubble
• bad mortgages
• mortgages
• Peter J. Wallison