(WOMENSENEWS)– Two Women Are Central to Economic Collapse One: As the New York Times reported today in Taking Hard New Look at a Greenspan Legacy, the chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006 is an acolyte of Ayn Rand, the Russian-born novelist and philosopher who exalted the individual and believed in extremely limited government. Alan Greenspan joined a small group meeting in her New York home in the 1950s, attended her funeral in 1982 and still claims her as a strong influence. Throughout his tenure, Greenspan religiously and ardently resisted regulation of the markets and pushed for additional deregulation.Two: The one person who tried to rein in the trading of derivatives–the financial instrument being blamed for the international financial meltdown–is Brooksley Born, now a retired lawyer in Washington, D.C. Born was head of the Commodity Futures Exchange in 1997 as part of the Clinton administration. She became concerned that the unfettered trading could “threaten our regulated markets or, indeed, our economy without any federal agency knowing about it,” the Times reported, citing congressional testimony. She called for greater disclosure of trades and reserves to cushion against losses.