Deregulation was not the cause of this problem. That is just a talking point, pure and simple.
Please see my note above about this. The combination of both laws, in 1999 and 2002, allowed Enron and the current state of affairs to come to pass...period.
You talk about warning signs, then why did people like Barney Frank tell us that these organizations were fine and didn't need any type of action taken.
For the same reasons that all of the Republicans sponsored this legislation during the years they had complete control of both houses of congress and the executive branch, ahem. Their campaign contributions, Democrat AND Republican, were coming from those people.
No one wanted to rock the boat as long as everyone was making money. And we all assumed that the safeguards put into place after the Great Depression would protect us, as it had over 70 years. Unfortunately, the politicians that we the people entrusted with this didn't understand the problem any better than we did (politicians are dumb humans too haha) and the agencies whose job it was to police this had been strategically gutted/lobotomized by Cheney/Bush in 2000.
So, no oversight + no regulation + no safeguards = CORRUPTION BUBBLE that's gonna burst one day. And it did.
Do you realize that Bush and republcians did try to overhaul these insititutions and was knocked down by democrats (and ACORN)?
ROFL. You're going to try and stretch a grass roots get out the vote organization supported by ALL Republicans and Democrats (including Obama AND McCain) into this conversation?! Puh-lease. Ignoring that utter ridiculousness...
No, the Republicans nor the Democrats did NOT try to re-regulate these agencies. Their personal friends and campaign contributors were all making too much money off of this. Regardless, the Democrats only gained control of one house of Congress in 2006...long after the Credit Default Swap horses had stampeded out of their Wall Street barns.
And I remember 2000-2008 where NOTHING got done or passed in the interests of the American people because Bush vetoed or threatened to veto anything and everything, at a time when neither house of congress had veto-proof majorities. This was the past 8 years of GRID LOCK, and no amount of revisionist ideological spin is going to erase that historical truth.