fast with a bill that would eventually make its way into the Dodd–Frank Act. A section of the bill that would become Title VII dealt with swaps products. It contained four operative mandates: registration of swaps dealers and major swap participants, channeling of more bilateral swaps transactions into central counterparty clearinghouses, increasing counterparty risk transparency, and execution of swap transactions on regulated platforms.
Over the winter and spring of 2010, our merry band discussed the draft legislation in countless calls and trips to Washington. I testified before Congress several times as a swaps market expert. In July 2010, Dodd–Frank was passed into law. As the then president of the WMBAA, I issued a public statement commending President Obama and Congress for passage. I believed then and believe now that Congress got the swaps reform provisions of Dodd–Frank right.
Who, Me?
Over the next several years, the CFTC under Chairman Gary Gensler set about rapidly implementing Dodd–Frank's swaps mandates. In January 2013, CFTC Commissioner Jill Sommers, a Republican, announced her intention to leave the agency. Not long after, I was contacted by staff for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell asking if I was interested in being recommended to the Obama administration to replace Sommers. After a lot of thought and discussion with Regina, I said yes.
The 14 years I spent with GFI were some of the most satisfying years of my life. I owed a great deal to Mickey Gooch, Colin Heffron, and so many great GFI colleagues. I also owed a lot to my WMBAA colleagues for the work that got me noticed and considered for service at the CFTC. And, of course, I owed everything to Regina, who once again gave her blessing to a new and unanticipated adventure.
As I said goodbye to GFI, my business colleagues held a rousing going-away party for me at my favorite Wall Street restaurant, Delmonico's.6 At one point, I left the party to go to the men's room. As I passed through the bar, a young man came up to me to wish me well. He said, “You probably don't remember me, but I was the guy dancing on the corner 14 years ago.” I asked what he was doing now. He said he was the number two guy on JPMorgan's fixed income trading desk in North America. Clearly, he had learned his lessons well.
In August 2013, President Obama announced my nomination. The following March, I testified before the Senate Agriculture Committee alongside fellow CFTC nominees Tim Massad and Sharon Bowen. After Senate confirmation, I was sworn in on June 24, 2014, by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in a moving ceremony in the House Agriculture Committee Hearing Room overlooking the Capitol. In addition to many friends and family members, the attendees included Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, Congressmen Mike Conaway and Scott Garrett, and my new colleagues, CFTC Chairman Massad and Commissioner Bowen.
I began by thanking Justice Thomas and the other distinguished guests. I then thanked my mother and father and three brothers—all gathered for the first time in decades and, as it turned out, for the last time ever. I thanked Regina for her love and support and the gift of our three children, Emma, Luke, and Henry.
I then said:
“Today is indeed an honor for me and my family. What a thrill for a guy from New Jersey to be nominated by the President of the United States, to be confirmed unanimously by the US Senate, to be welcomed today by leaders of the House of Representatives and to be sworn in by an esteemed member of the US Supreme Court. “Wow! What a country!” And what an honor.
“As I said in my confirmation hearing, I come from a line of doctors, nurses, and business entrepreneurs, simple immigrants almost a century ago. My grandparents and great grandparents would beam with pride if they were here with us.
“And yet, they would not be surprised. Instead, they may have found it thrilling along with all the other amazing aspects of this wonderful country. A country where extraordinary things happen quite ordinarily.”
That day the sun was indeed “… shining down . . .” on a new road. I had been given the opportunity to travel that road on the merits of my knowledge and expertise, not because of party or personal loyalty. I had no other Washington ambitions other than to serve five years for my country and make a good showing of myself. I had no partisan political agenda to fulfill. I owed no one, and no one owned me.
So, here I was, once again, embarking down a new section of highway, twisting and unwinding, far from where I started. It passed through that intersection of law, markets, and technology that consistently remained the course of my career. And soon I would feel the powerful tailwinds of the Internet of Value and see the dawning rays of cryptocurrencies.
Notes
1 1. eSecurities, Trading and Regulation on the Internet (American Lawyer Media, Published September 1998 - January 2003).
2 2. He is suspected by some to be the alter ego of the celebrated British recording artist Mike Marlin. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Marlin
3 3. “The Great Recession was made possible by the mobilization of most of the governments and associated banks of East and West in a mad rush to pump money into securitized mortgages on the margins of the middle class and below. Inequality in a top-heavy, slow growing economy inspired a drive to substitute credit for real income and wealth. The result was a huge overhang of debt in the middle class and a swelling of assets at the top.” George Gilder, The Scandal of Money: Why Wall Street Recovers but the Economy Does Not (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2016), 90–91.
4 4. See, www.wmbaa.org
5 5. Micah Green had previously served as president and co-CEO of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), which was formed by a merger between The Bond Market Association and the Securities Industry Association. Today, he is a partner in the distinguished law firm of Steptoe & Johnson.
6 6. Many restaurants use the “Delmonico's” name. The original and, I believe, the best is at 56 Beaver Street in lower Manhattan where it has been since the nineteenth century. That restaurant introduced the concept of fine dining to America and is said to have created such dishes as Delmonico steak, Chicken à la King, Eggs Benedict, Lobster Newberg, and Baked Alaska.
Chapter 3 Heading Down the Highway
On a straight but undulating road, you don't concentrate on the next brow, but the one after that, and anything in between you will (or should) have taken account of long before you reach it.
—Michael Costin (auto racing engineer), describing the racing state of mind, Trackrod Motor Club Newsletter, Dec. 1973
The Layout
The US government formed administrative agencies to regulate commercial activity in the late 1800s, with the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission. Applying powers delegated by Congress, these agencies publish
