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A call for financial reform

Dear Editor:

As a former financial executive who personally witnessed a major Wall Street bank’s entry into the lucrative derivatives markets in the 1980s, I support the financial reform bill now before Congress.

As a former “insider,” I watched the financial meltdown with growing dismay since it started in 2007. Michael Lewis’ recent best-seller, “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine,” exposed the incredibly lax regulations that inevitably enabled the crisis to occur.



We need financial regulatory reform now so the kinds of abuses that led to the worst recession since the Great Depression can’t happen again.

The proposed bill puts in place important regulations to limit the kinds and amounts of risks financial institutions can take, and to reduce the possibility of need for future bank bailouts. It also cracks down on predatory lending, changes the way credit card and mortgage companies do business, and creates a Consumer Financial Protection Agency.




The bill isn’t perfect. Personally, I’d like to see even more limits on what financial institutions will be able to do. But it is a huge improvement over what we have today.

This legislation needs to be passed. I’ve written Senators Nelson and LeMieux and Rep. Mack urging them to do so. I hope your readers will do the same.

Sandy Parker

Carbondale and Naples, Fla.