An introduction to the theory of oligarchy in practice today.

In a sometimes contentious call, Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission representatives Phil Angelides and Brooksley Born acknowledged that we might still be in a financial crisis, and that their report should not be seen as the last word on an event that still has the capacity to significantly damage the global economy.

Apparently, the Republicans on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission have abandoned the commission because the other six members would not agree to ban the phrases “Wall Street” and “deregulation” from the final report.

Firedoglake.com founder Jane Hamsher appeared on MSNBC this afternoon with host Cenk Uygur. The topic for discussion was the evolving story that Christina Romer’s resignation as head of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers is symptomatic of a larger problem of women not being treated equally within the Obama administration. Hamsher describes how, especially within the White House economic team, women who were right about the economic meltdown are ignored in favor of the men on the team who were “aggressively wrong” in making both the decisions that led to the disaster as well as current decisions that are not improving the situation sufficiently.

Brooksley Born wants to know the effect of credit default swaps on the housing bubble and the Great Crash. Citibank representatives don’t think there was an effect. Yves Smith disagrees.

Born, who pushed to strictly regulate derivatives under the Clinton Administration, but lost the battle to, among other people, Alan Greenspan, told the former Federal Reserve chair that his agency “failed to prevent housing bubble, failed to prevent the predatory lending scandal, failed to prevent the activities that would bring the financial system to the verge of collapse.”