Some Bank Bosses Face Axe: FDIC Chief

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Alan Greenspan was appointed Fed Chairman by Reagan in 1987. He allowed interest rates to remain too low, thereby over-inflating the housing bubble... all the while adamantly refusing to regulate high-risk financial tools. Derivatives, in the form of the mortgage-backed security, would soon collapse under its own weight, triggering the financial crisis in 2008. Phil Gramm, Republican Senator from Texas, turned down the SEC's requests for funding aimed at policing Wall Street. He also opposed an SEC rule that would've prevented accounting firms from getting too close to companies they audited... and warned the SEC that if the commission adopted that rule, funding would be cut. He also pushed through a provision that ensured virtually no regulation of complex financial instruments, including credit swaps, that would encourage risky investment practices on Wall Street and spread the risks around the world. In 1999, he pushed a banking deregulation bill that broke down walls between commercial banks, insurance companies and securities firms which directly contributed to the financial crisis. In 2000, he slipped a measure (the Commodity Futures Modernization Act) into a $384 billion spending bill. The act, he said, would prevent the SEC -- especially the Commodity Futures Trading Commission -- from getting into the business of regulating financial products called "swaps" which were at the heart of the subprime debacle. Henry Paulson, Treasury Secretary under Bush - In 2000, when he was CEO of Goldman Sachs, he testified in front of the Security and Exchange Commission where he lobbied the SEC to enact a "change to self-regulation" for Wall Street. He also urged them to change the "Net Capital Rule," which governed the amount of leverage investment banks could use. In 2004, the line between government and Wall Street would get even blurrier, as the Net Capital Rule officially changed... and is now blamed by many for the investment banks' collapse. A few years later, as the housing market began to unravel, he would prove the government couldn't see what was coming with his ridiculous releases to the media such as in October 2007, when he said: "I have no interest in bailing out lenders or property speculators... I can't think of any situation where the backdrop of the global economy was as healthy as it is today..." God Damn the GOP is more like it.

She also publicly criticized the previous administration's $700 billion bailout package, which I agree with. Are you willing to concede that the previous administration botched it too?

For far to long part of all regulatory reviews conducted on safety and soundness, CRA, and other legal requirements, have had sections on Management Assessment. The only universal problem with those charged with that assessment, is whitewashing much of it. Never in my banking and bank consulting career has there been a objective set of metrics on how well managers perform and are assessed. The FDIC have now finally had courage enough to pull the covers off this sacred and hallowed ground to which to little has been transparent and exposed. The first problem in any industry that has more than 1 employee is management, a good friend had addressed this in the eighties with a book learned through his experience as a banking executive and should be part of any training. Quite simply it is referred to as MBWA (Management by Wandering Around) and the last known person I remember while at Ford was a guy name Iacocca who would constantly do it. PS he did not write the Book, it was John Dorland. As for Sheila B and others heading regulatory agencies, it is about time to start umpiring and making calls, go face to face with execs and boards, tell it like it is.