Sheila Bair on Keeping Banks Honest
Bill talks with financial expert Sheila Bair about the lawlessness of our banking system and the prognosis for meaningful reform. Bair was appointed in 2006 by President George W. Bush to chair the FDIC. During the 2008 meltdown, she argued that in some cases banks were NOT too big to fail — that instead of bailouts, they should be sold off to healthier competitors. Now a senior adviser to the Pew Charitable Trusts, Bair has organized a private group of financial experts including former Fed chairman Paul Volcker, former Senators Bill Bradley and Alan Simpson, and John Reed, once the chairman of Citicorp, to explore ways to prevent the banking industry from scuttling reforms created by the Dodd-Frank Act.
“I worry that the public is getting cynical,” Bair tells Moyers. “One of the reasons I started the Systemic Risk Council is I feel the special interest lobbying is, in a calculated way, trying to slow down reform, complicate reform, water reform down. And the public loses interest — they become cynical about if the regulators in Washington can fix any of this, and they don’t exert counter political pressure to get meaningful reforms in place.”
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Ms. Bair, I wrote you from my Bloomberg address in late 2010, early 2011. I did not hear back from you. I wrote to your Bloomberg address, and Massachusetts email address. I have copies of the emails. The Bloomberg email shows you did receive it. I am perplexed why you did not respond to me then. Perhaps you prefer a public forum? I am more than willing to have a pubic debate with you regarding fraudclosure or the current LIBOR scandal. Which was well publicized in March and August of 2008 in the Wall Street Journal. I am equally perplexed as to why you find it of interest now?
You were head of the FDIC back in 2008, no?
I know you fought a good many battles, but do not retire in 2012 and take the patsy position. It is unbecoming of my respect for you.
As Ever,
Jylly Jakes
PS. You were on a Bloomberg/email blast that included President Obama, Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Geitner, Vikram Pandit, etc…nobody got back to me in 2011. When I pointed out in a 2 page email that you all were ignoring the problem that needed to be dealt with. Your credibility is shot. You had a bad political hand to play and you did not have the vision to parlay it. Do not complain now, or try to remake yourself as someone that was NOT complicate. You had the same information as the NY Fed back in 2008 about LIBOR fraud. It was in the Wall St Journal for crying out loud. I am not alleging a cover up, I am alleging that you didn’t tell the truth in 2008, 2009 nor 2010. All those years as president of the FDIC, and NOW you see the light? You are the truth sayer?
Please, if you want me to believe that, then I got a bridge in Sea Bright NJ to sell you. Cheap.
The LIBOR scandal was squashed in 2008 by Fed, while you WERE PRESIDENT OF THE FDIC!!! You didn’t do your job Ms. Blair. YOU DID NOT DO YOUR JOB.
So knock it off with your “Well, I know what to do now” horse pucky. That’s right, horse PUCKY! I said it and I stand by it. You speak horse pucky.