In the late 1990s, Brooksley Born, the chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, attempted to regulate the opaque and rapidly expanding over-the-counter derivatives market. Her efforts were met with fierce resistance from powerful figures in Washington, including Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, who argued that such regulation would disrupt the thriving financial system. As Born's warnings went unheeded, the collapse of the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management exposed the systemic risks inherent in the unregulated market, forcing the government to confront the potential for a catastrophic financial crisis.