http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/23/business/23how.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2
"A milestone in the deregulation effort came in the fall of 2000, when a
lame-duck session of Congress passed a little-noticed piece of legislation
called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. The bill effectively kept
much of the market for derivatives and other exotic instruments off-limits
to agencies that regulate more conventional assets like stocks, bonds and
futures contracts.
"Sup****ted by Phil Gramm, then a Republican senator from Texas and
chairman
of the Senate Banking Committee, the legislation was a 262-page amendment
to
a far larger appropriations bill. It was signed into law by President Bill
Clinton that December."
Or as Krugman put it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/24/opinion/24krugman.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=krugman+gramm&st=nyt&oref=slogin
"Not if Mr. McCain makes it to the White House. His chief economic adviser
is former Senator Phil Gramm, a fervent advocate of financial
deregulation.
In fact, I’d argue that aside from Alan Greenspan, nobody did as much as
Mr.
Gramm to make this crisis possible."
