Greenspan was behind it all the way.
In 1999, Alan Greenspan, then Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, not only supported the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 but testified in front of the Senate Committee that the legislation was essential for economic growth and absolutely necessary. He praised derivatives as hedging instruments and as enhancing the ability to differentiate risk and allocate it to those investors most able and willing to take it.

The ballooning housing market and the rising stock market of the past decade would have been impossible if not for the easy money policy of the Federal Reserve. Monetary expansion through the banking system and resulting low rates of interest fed the housing and stock market frenzy, indeed it made them possible.