MiddleClassBill:
I want to apologize for the previous negative comment I made to you. I get overly defensive from time to time and turn into a "keyboard warrior." Again...My apologies!

Phil Gramm and his wife (an Enron board member)were deeply involved in implementing today's financial fiasco.

Some economists state that the 1999 legislation spearheaded by Gramm and signed into law by President Clinton — the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act — was significantly to blame for the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis and 2008 global economic crisis.[8][9] The Act is most widely known for repealing portions of the Glass-Steagall Act, which had regulated the financial services industry.[10]

Gramm responded to criticism of the act by stating that he saw "no evidence whatsoever" that the sub-prime mortgage crisis was caused in any way "by allowing banks and securities companies and insurance companies to compete against each other."[11] The Act passed the House by an overwhelming majority and passed by unanimous consent in the Senate, though it was introduced on the last day before Christmas holiday and never debated by either congressional body. [12]

Gramm's support was later critical in the passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, which kept derivatives transactions, including those involving credit default swaps, free of government regulation.[13]

In its 2008 coverage of the financial crisis, The Washington Post named Gramm one of seven "Key Players In the Battle Over Regulating Derivatives", for having "[p]ushed through several major bills to deregulate the banking and investment industries, including the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley act that brought down the walls separating the commercial banking, investment and insurance industries".[14]

2008 Nobel Laureate in Economics Paul Krugman, a supporter of Barack Obama, described Gramm during the 2008 presidential race as "the high priest of deregulation," and has listed him as the number two person responsible for the economic crisis of 2008 behind only Alan Greenspan.[15][16] On October 14, 2008, CNN ranked Gramm number seven in its list of the 10 individuals most responsible for the current economic crisis.[17] In January 2009 Guardian City editor Julia Finch identified him as one of twenty-five people who were at the heart of the financial meltdown.[18] Time included Gramm in its list of the top 25 people to blame for the economic crisis.[19]

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, (Pub.L. 106-102, 113 Stat. 1338, enacted November 12, 1999) is an act of the 106th United States Congress (1999-2001) which repealed part of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, opening up the market among banking companies, securities companies and insurance companies. The Glass-Steagall Act prohibited any one institution from acting as any combination of an investment bank, a commercial bank, and/or an insurance company.

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act allowed commercial banks, investment banks, securities firms and insurance companies to consolidate. For example, Citicorp (a commercial bank holding company) merged with Travelers Group (an insurance company) in 1998 to form the conglomerate Citigroup, a corporation combining banking, securities and insurance services under a house of brands that included Citibank, Smith Barney, Primerica and Travelers. This combination, announced in 1993 and finalized in 1994, would have violated the Glass-Steagall Act and the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 by combining securities, insurance, and banking, if not for a temporary waiver process.[1] The law was passed to legalize these mergers on a permanent basis. Historically, the combined industry has been known as the "financial services industry".