Risky Business

On October 15, 2009, Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota discussed the requirements for financial sector reform at a conference co-hosted with the Washington Monthly. In a 1994 Washington Monthly cover story, "Very Risky Business", Senator Dorgan predicted with uncanny precision what actually happened in September 2008. Then, in 1999, Dorgan was one of eight senators to vote against the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed Depression-era banking regulation, cautioning at the time that deregulation "would raise the likelihood of future massive taxpayer bailouts." Now, as Chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee, Senator Dorgan supports sweeping reform of the financial sector.

Long before the complete meltdown of the financial industry last fall, Senator Byron Dorgan warned us about the risks posed by one of the key ingredients in that catastrophe: the complex financial packages known as derivatives. In a Washington Monthly cover story, "Very Risky Business" (October 1994), the North Dakota Democrat predicted with uncanny precision what actually happened in September 2008 — the cascading failures of large lending institutions, the collapse of Fannie Mae, taxpayer-funded bailouts — and speculated that a derivatives-driven financial crisis would eventually leave Americans "nostalgic for the days of the $500 billion savings-and-loan collapse."

In 1999, Dorgan was one of eight senators to vote against the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed Depression-era banking regulation, cautioning at the time that deregulation "would raise the likelihood of future massive taxpayer bailouts."

Participants
featured
speaker
Senator Byron L. Dorgan (D-ND)
Chairman, Democratic
Policy Committee
Author, Reckless!: How Debt, Deregulation, and Dark Money Nearly Bankrupted America (And How We Can Fix It!)

moderator
Michael Lind
Policy Director, Economic Growth Program
New America
Foundation