[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6514]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     GAMBLING ON SYNTHETIC GARBAGE

  (Ms. SPEIER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. SPEIER. Mr. Speaker, as I watched yesterday's Senate 
investigations subcommittee hearing, I was disappointed to discover it 
was not just the greedy, irresponsible, and likely illegal actions of 
some of Goldman Sachs' more dubious employees that were the center of 
attention. In fact, the useless and dangerous financial instruments 
known as synthetic collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs, shared the 
spotlight as well.
  Fabrice Tourre, one of Goldman's hotshot young stars who created and 
sold these so-called investments to Goldman's clients, testified 
yesterday that they were, quote, ``things which had no purpose,'' and 
likened them to Frankenstein's monster. Sadly, he's right. These CDOs 
did nothing for our economy and spread billions of dollars in toxic 
assets, heightened speculation, and added dangerous risk to our 
financial system that ultimately was borne by the U.S. taxpayers.
  Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs and others reaped millions of dollars in 
bonuses even as the economy was crashing. These synthetic CDOs were 
synthetic garbage.
  Unscrupulous individuals on Wall Street worsened the financial crisis 
by creating garbage, selling it and betting against it. Oh, they drove 
away with a garbage truck full of cash.
  Let's ban the creation and sale of them, and prevent this from ever 
happening again.

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