Brooksley Born was ahead of her time. She was the head of the CFTC a decade ago and raised alarms about the rise of derivatives and their ability to cause financial catastrophe. She wanted to--horror!-- regulate derivatives but she ran into some powerful opposition, the Washington Post notes.

Back then, the Wall Street Journal wrote "the nation's top financial regulators wish Brooksley Born would just shut up." Men like Alan Greenspan, Arthur Levitt, Robert Rubin and Larry Summers. At 68, she would appear to be a woman vindicated by events. But she is hardly gloating. She's way too classy, it would appear. But we would have all been better if we had listened to the woman. When she was just out of Stanford law she was told by a Supreme Court justice that he wasn't ready to have a female clerk.  

For more:
- here's the article

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