So it only took 10 or 15 years for her warnings to come to fruition.

Even a blind squirrel find a nut every now and then.

@rocketbear79: That's right. We can't trust women who aren't supermodel material. Please find a subject matter expert with long, blond hair, a spray-on tan, and a tiny bikini.

For what it's worth, we had contemporary economists and politicians saying the same thing, as well as much more than simple transparency and regulation of markets. It's surprising how quickly people forget (or wish not to believe) that government lending agencies launched this whole financial upheaval. Without Fannie Mae having its books cooked for 10 years and making stupid bets on real estate valuations... we also wouldn't be in this as deep as we are.

@zomg!: I prefer brunettes, but you've got the right idea!

@zomg!: So you learned everything about gravitas from James Bond movies too, huh? I thought I was the only one.

@rocketbear79: Yeah, Greenspan at all are so sexyhot, it's totes understandable that they didn't listen to Born.

Maybe when the economy gets really bad, you can eat printouts of that free porn off the internet.

Given what's actually IN cat food, I wouldn't eat it regardless.

m nt lrg rptln frm Dstrct 9. t dg fd.

'm nt dfndng l Grny, bt mght hv trbl blvng nythng tht cm t f th mth f smbdy nmd Brksly, wth hrct lk tht. Bt tht's jst m, 'm prjdc.

(Shld b n ntrstng wtch thgh)

I don't eat cat food.. it's too expensive.

Would laws have done any good? Is there any evidence Greenspan and regulators at the SEC would have enforced them?

The "de-regulation" philosophy is what got us into this, and its adherents would have put it into practice regardless of the law.

@Blueskylaw: No offense but economies usually take a very long time to fail when something goes wrong. The great depression was years in the making.

@mythago: Oh come on, those three guys on the right, don't their faces just exude "Trust Me?" I for one think they do. I'd buy a strychnine popsicle Greeney,Rubin & Summers any day.

In all seriousness though, during the Clinton years those three d-bags put a stop to a lot of financial "sense" that people like Born were championing especially regs on commodities, which is why I think this will be a good watch. Hopefully they are thoroughly vilified.

So we are all Prawns now?

/looks at the eviction notice posted on his door.

@rocketbear79: buy the popsicle *from*

Was this the report that told Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd not to buy frozen concentrated orange juice futures?

I've owned stocks for a few years. A funny thing happened after I became a stockholder, I started paying attention to the stock market, and realized that all this is gambling. The value would go up and down like a rollercoaster on a daily basis. This did not seem indicative of any kind of investment market, rather it is a money manipulation market, a market that decides what businesses survive and which don't. The performance of the business is supposed to determine whether is stays or goes, not those moving money around to increase their bottom dollar quickly. That's gambling.

It was obvious enough what was happening early last year to anyone paying a bit of attention. An insider such as Brooksley obviously had the information at her disposal to see what was happening long before the bubble popped.

It's also ironic that the same government the Right is so patriotic about will be called too inept to govern when it comes to the suggestion of reform, regulation and oversight.

Greenspan and those of his ilk are far too narcissistic (I would say "arrogant", but their self-importance transcends that term) to eat crow. In their minds, they were completely not at fault, and whatever went wrong could not have been predicted or prevented. These people will *never* admit they were wrong, and will *never* listen to anyone with an opposing viewpoint.

There was tons of money being made by those who were connected - why would anyone want that to end?

@Blueskylaw: She made her warnings in the late 90's. So it was probably less than 10 years. Not to mention that the relevant point is that had the govt enacted the reforms she'd suggested we'd have avoided the current collapse.

@NitrousO:

No offense taken. My point is that thousands of economists, analysts, etc. have their views on what will happen in the future and when a few get/guess it right, they are treated like the Oracle of Delphi.

People have been saying for the past 100 years (guess) that there will not be enough food to feed the world and for at least 1000 years (guess) that the world will be coming to an end soon. So far so good.

@Blueskylaw: Some predictions about the future are wrong, therefore it is reasonable for Greenspan et al to have ignored Born? I'm clearly missing a step in your logic here.

The point you're not getting is that Born's warning's were rejected for purely ideological reasons. Not because her math was bad, or because equally good and well-supported theories disagreed with hers.

@mythago: "at all" = "et. al."

@JollyJumjuck: He's actually said he was wrong--okay, "partially" wrong, and that he's no longer a complete free-marketeer.

Not that that'll get you anything, but I thought that was an interesting sign of how bad things had gotten.

@Kimaroo - No Stars Upon Thars: I use cats for food. Is that the same thing?

@Blueskylaw: Derivatives haven't been around that long, and they required the failure of the underlying assets before the poisonous tree really fruited. She called it from the start, basically. If you're arguing that derivatives weren't a problem, you'd have been in tons of company then, but you're going to have to argue that from a pretty solitary place now.

From the RSS feed (guess it got edited out of the post):

"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.

@Blueskylaw: this isn't just some economist or analyst though. this was the head of the CFTC saying, "uh, guys? maybe all this deregulation isn't such a great thing. i see the potential for abuse here." & the groupthinktank saying, "stfu! begone with ye."

@crashfrog: There was a battle between the SEC and the CFTC over who would have jurisdiction over derivatives. As a result, neither was really given the green light to regulate and Congress finally passed laws that made it impossible to regulate. It's not a happy chapter in the annals of protection of the markets.

And this news report will also feature Peter Schiff's warnings, right?

@ThinkerTDM: Thanks for pointing out that typo.

@Persistence-Quick, post while the boss isn't looking!: So you still haven't learned to invest for dividends? Which makes you not a gambler?

@Oranges w/ Cheese wants it to be winter already: depends on which you buy. My cats eat cat food that only contains 2-3 items in its ingredients and thats it.

Of course its like a dollar fifty a can and costs me over 100 bucks for a month and a half of food, but I would have no issues eating the stuff if I had to.

@harvey_birdman: He wasn't the head of what should have been the relevant government agency. They're not saying she's the only person who called this in advance, because that's clearly not true.

@Persistence-Quick, post while the boss isn't looking!: the only difference between Wall Street and Las Vegas is that Vegas is more heavily regulated.

@Stephmo: My investment, which was inherited, is in a very old and established company. I don't buy and sell stock, I keep my investment where it is for retirement, and for as long as the company doesn't get delisted.

@crashfrog: My guess is that Bush would have failed to enforce and so we'd be in a similar situation, but possibly not as bad.

@Persistence-Quick, post while the boss isn't looking!: So you own one stock, you don't know if you have dividend payments or not, you have no diversification to speak of and you parrot the gambling line.

Yeah, you're an expert.

Honestly, when they start teaching investing for dividends again, it will be a better day. It's the unrealistic expectation of the day trader environment that led people to believe that it's a gambling environment. Those consistently making money in the market aren't day traders and don't invest for gains in stock price.

@TedSez: HA! That movie was on this past friday! I saw it for the first time ever.

Crow is actually really good and not as 'redneck' as you might think... and that woman looks like a man.

@Persistence-Quick, post while the boss isn't looking!: Ive only begun investing (personal account and 401k) about a year ago. I started out -15 percent and now Im up 21 percent.

Really, its not gambling if you understand that most stock players are fools and the only smart ones are the ones who LIVE in the industry they're investing in.

@Thermopyle: With surgical precision. The best precision that Zimbabwean dollars could afford.

@Blueskylaw: The difference between a lucky guess and a good prediction is the facts it is based on.

She isn't the first or only person trying to call attention to this and some other business and economic trends that are going to cause some bigger future problems.

@Stephmo: It goes so far above and beyond the traditional day trading. Check out this article from Ars Technica:

[arstechnica.com]

According to the article, "between 60 and 75 percent of the NYSE's daily trading volume is just computers trading against one another using a variety of strategies." It's called high frequency trading (HFT) and it is really scary. Automated computer programs controlling our economy more than decisions made by actual people. The article also goes into Dark Pools which demonstrate an example of unchecked abuse and corruption within the stock market.

In the end, the worst part about it all is that quality of products/services and competitive prices have next to nothing to do with the stock market exchange. Yet, that is supposed to be the bread and butter of a consumer friendly economy.

@Falcon5768: Very true. Some of the stuff I was giving to my cats before I became broke smelled wonderful and probably tasted great too. All organic and what not.

But now I'm back to feeding them kibble T_T, which makes me sad.

You're using that analogy incorrectly… at least, I hope you are, for Brooksley's sake. Canaries were placed in coal mines because they would tweet constantly… until they stopped tweeting, because they had died from deadly gases. Hence their value as a warning system. So, Brooksley would need to be dead or no longer talking to represent the poor canary.

@Persistence-Quick, post while the boss isn't looking!: Even holding for the long haul, diversification and such, it is still just elaborate gambling. The recent jump of the markets was nothing more than a manipulation game and all of the analysts admitted so. The one on NPR went as far as to point out that this kind of manipulation to move prices was a danger to everyone else since it isn't a true recovery, just some big banks playing around.

What bothers me even more is there is no other standardized means for retirement savings. 401k is the standard vehicle and is dependent on the markets.

I shudder every time I think about what would have happened if Bush got his way and they moved social security into the stock market. I am starting to see the entire system this country has been using to be a abject failure. No reliable health care system. No reliable means of retirement planning and virtually no social safety net. I hear people bleating about how the lack of this also makes me free to "chart my own course" or start a business. Honestly, the screwed up system has made any of those things much harder.

Moving to Europe has again become an ongoing conversation at my house.

@tailstoo: I would love to see some charts that show how and where wealth has been consolidated in the years Bush was in office from start to end. It might be very enlightening.

@ThinkerTDM: Actually, you have an extra period in there. It's "et al." for "et alia" (or other variations based on gender). My HS Latin teacher would be so proud.

@happywaffle: How exactly do canaries type out their tweets? Where do they store their cell phones?