Gramm: My bad

Phil Gramm in the NYT defends himself against charges that he helped author the current financial crisis.

The author and chief advocate of the Commodities Futures Modernization Act has a lot of 'splaining to do. The Times piece brings some weight to the suggestion that Gramm was an eager deregulator of the financial sector.

Here's the priceless bit on credit default swaps (although it's a crying shame it was not a direct quote):

Mr. Gramm says that, given what has happened, there are modest regulatory changes he would favor, including requiring issuers of credit-default swaps to demonstrate that they have enough capital to back up their pledges. But his belief that government should intervene only minimally in markets is unshaken.

Gosh, Phil - you mean that people pledging to cover losses with money they don't have sounds risky?

Wow, only eight years too late to do any good. Thanks for nothing, Phil.

(H/t CJR)