[ Frontline ] The Warning

What’s the hidden history of the derivatives market? Who might have tried to stop the meltdown? What were the forces at play that created this rarified and for some highly lucrative financial space? After nearly 40-years of experimenting with this unregulated financial space what conclusions are free-market libertarian’s taking from this body of evidence? It appears to me that free-market economist were provided enough time to demonstrate their theory that markets correct themselves and that financial interests act in there own best interest.

The story of the President’s working group: Fed Chairman Allan Greenspan, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, Assistant Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and then there was Commodity Futures Trading Commissioner Brooksley Born.

With a $500 trillion black market in free fall and consequently the world’s economy what option does a new President have but the keep up front the major players to calm those within the black market and a world economy which is dependent on them. I wonder if Obama has some advisors watching over people like Summers. My concern moving forward is not that we won’t regulate these markets, but that these markets will move on and diversify, essentially creating black markets in all sorts of places.

I find it difficult to accept Allan Greenspan’s mia culpa. It wasn’t an ideology he was operating and protecting, it was a $500 trillion black market with hidden players and hidden rules he was operating and protecting.

Thomas Economics