http://todaysfinancialnews.disqus.com/enSat, 14 Jun 2008 21:31:24 -0000http://www.todaysfinancialnews.com/oil-and-energy/attack-on-prosperity-how-speculators-are-causing-the-cost-of-living-to-skyrocket/#comment-677818From washington monthly :<br>"In the early evening of Friday, December 15, 2000, with Christmas break only hours away, the U.S. Senate rushed to pass an essential, 11,000-page government reauthorization bill. In what one legal textbook would later call "a stunning departure from normal legislative practice," the Senate tacked on a complex, 262-page amendment at the urging of Texas Sen. Phil Gramm.<br><br>There was little debate on the floor. According to the Congressional Record, Gramm promised that the amendment -- also known as the Commodity Futures Modernization Act --along with other landmark legislation he had authored, would usher in a new era for the U.S. financial services industry.(...)<br><br>With the U.S. economy now battered by a tsunami of mortgage foreclosures, the $30-billion Bear Stearns Companies bailout and spiking food and energy prices, many congressional leaders and Wall Street analysts are questioning the wisdom of the radical deregulation launched by Gramm’s legislative package. Financial wizard Warren Buffett has labeled the risky new investment instruments Gramm unleashed "financial weapons of mass destruction." They have fed the subprime mortgage crisis like an accelerant. While his distracted peers probably finalized their Christmas gift lists, Gramm created what Wall Street analysts now refer to as the "shadow banking system," an industry that operates outside any government oversight, but, as witnessed by the Bear Stearns debacle, requiring rescue by taxpayers to avert a national economic catastrophe<br><a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_06/013839.php" rel="nofollow">http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/indiv...</a>Kristie MansfieldSat, 14 Jun 2008 21:31:24 -0000