Our story thus far: The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, sponsored by Texas Senator Phil Gramm as a favor to his wife Wendy (who sat on the Board of Directors of Enron, which wanted to trade energy derivatives without oversight) was rushed through Congress in 2000. Unread by Congress or their staffers, it was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on the advice of his Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. The CFMA radically deregulated derivatives. The law changed the Commodity Exchange Act of 1936 (CEA) to exempt derivatives transactions from regulations as either “futures” (under the CEA) or ... (full story)