The next meeting of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission is set for June 30th - Julyl 1st. The meeting is titled "The Role of Derivatives in the Financial Crisis."

Witnesses giving testimony include representatives from American International Group (AIG), Goldman Sachs, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Office of Thrift Supervision, and the New York State Insurance Department.

These manipulation of so-called 'complex financial instruments' certainly played a role in bringing about the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. We welcome the hearings.

In today's must-read in the Wall Street Journal, Elizabeth Warren makes the case for a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA).

The consumer agency is a watchdog that would root out gimmicks and traps and slim down paperwork, giving families a fighting chance to hang on to some of their money. So far, Wall Street CEOs seem determined to stop any kind of watchdog. They seem to think that they can run their businesses forever without our trust. This is a bad calculation.

It's a bad calculation because shareholders suffer enormously from the long-term cost of the boom-and- bust cycles that accompany a poorly regulated market. J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon recently explained this brave new world, saying that crises should be expected "every five to seven years."

He is wrong. New laws that came out of the Great Depression ended 150 years of boom-and-bust cycles and gave us 50 years with virtually no financial meltdowns. The stability ended as we dismantled those laws and failed to replace them with new laws that reflected modern business practices.

Even though boom and bust causes suffering on Main Street and is of questionable value for Wall Street - the banksters are fighting hard for it.

Now, a year later, President Obama's proposals for reform are bottled up in the Senate. The same Wall Street CEOs who brought the economy to its knees have spent more than a year and hundreds of millions of dollars furiously lobbying Washington to kill the president's proposal for a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA).

The latest bankster-funded lie is that the CFPA is more "big government." Warren lays waste to that argument:

The latest lie is that the CFPA is "big government." The CEOs all know that the current regulatory structure, which they support, is big government at its worst: bureaucratic, unaccountable and ineffective. The CFPA will consolidate seven separate bureaucracies, cut down on paperwork, and promote understandable consumer products. In the process, it will stabilize the industry, rebuild confidence in the securitization market, and leave more money in the pockets of families. Complaining about short, readable contracts and efforts to slim down bureaucracy only further diminishes the banks' credibility.

This generation of Wall Street CEOs could be the ones to forfeit America's trust. When the history of the Great Recession is written, they can be singled out as the bonus babies who were so short-sighted that they put the economy at risk and contributed to the destruction of their own companies. Or they can acknowledge how Americans' trust has been lost and take the first steps to earn it back.

Wall Street is using their money and influence to take advantage of a broken Senate to obstruct reform that's good for Main Street. Our economy needs the CFPA and we must fight for this common sense solution that will make government smaller, more efficient and better able to protect consumers.

Senator Richard Shelby is making a play to be king of the obstructionists in the Senate. First, he holds up 70 nominees because he wants more pork for his state. And, now, he's doing Wall Street's bidding and trying to scuttle real financial regulatory reform:

HuffPost asked Shelby if Dodd had confirmed to him on the floor that he was moving ahead with an independent Consumer Finance Protection Agency.

"Well, that's been our biggest split, okay, and it's still at impasse there," Shelby said. "But we're talking."

Yup, that's right - Shelby is holding up financial regulatory reform because he doesn't think there should be an organization whose mandate will be to protect consumers. It's been over a year since the collapse that brought about the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and, so far, no meaningful reforms have been passed to make sure it doesn't happen again. This is our opportunity to pass reform and all Shelby and his Republican pals can do is say no to meaningful reforms.

The Securities & Exchange Commission is responsible for enforcing securities and financial regulatory law in this country. In the lead up to and during the beginning of the global financial crisis three men were asleep at the wheel: former SEC head Christopher Cox, former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan and current Fed Chair Ben Bernanke.

Accountable America Chairman Tom Matzzie said that these three men must answer for their actions:

It’s about time. Chairman Angelides is right to call Cox and Greenspan. If they decline to appear they should be subpoenaed.

Cox macheted the law enforcement functions of the SEC—one of the reasons Bernie Madoff was never caught.

Cox in particular allowed the banks to over-leverage themselves by neglecting his role as SEC chair to protect the public. An SEC bank supervision program, started in 2004 by his predecessor, was abominably managed by Cox and has been called one of the single greatest factors contributing to the financial crisis. Cox’s 17-year record and demeanor as chairman was always to protect the Wall Street banks rather than investors, the public and the economy at large.

It is easy to forget that Alan Greenspan ran the Fed for most of the period when the housing bubble was being inflated. He sat by as the bubble grew with few critical words until after he left his post.

The last two days, Accountable America has run newspaper ads calling on the Commission to investigate the regulators who failed to protect the public and the economy. Support our efforts.

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission will meet on January 13 and 14 in Washington, DC in their first investigative hearings of the year. The media is reporting today that the Commission will bring high profile witnesses to the hearing.

From Dow Jones today,

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. chief executive Jamie Dimon, Bank of America Corp. chief executive Brian Moynihan, Morgan Stanley chairman John Mack, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. chief executive Lloyd Blankfein and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair are expected to be among those testifying at the two days of hearings next week.

Panel chairman Phil Angelides, a Democrat, and vice chairman Bill Thomas, a Republican, said they also planned to bring Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to testify under oath later this year.

The Commission has a website now and will reportedly webcast their proceedings.