Courtesy of Pam Martens.
Sheila Bair, Former Chair of the FDIC, Testifies In Support of Dodd-Frank
Former Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chair, Sheila Bair, was watching the clock on the wall yesterday during her questioning by the House Financial Services Committee on whether the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation can stop another taxpayer bailout of too-big-to-fail banks. In the midst of the hearing, it was announced that Bair would have to depart at 12 noon. Based on the answers coming from Bair versus the three other witnesses, there was the impression that Bair wanted to beat a hasty retreat to lunch.
The problem comes down to this: Bair and many on the Democrats’ side of the aisle, refuse to acknowledge that their much ballyhooed financial reform legislation passed in July 2010, the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, is an utter failure in reining in the abuses of the Wall Street behemoths as well as useless in preventing another taxpayer bailout.
Thomas Hoenig, Vice Chair of the FDIC, Testifying Before the House Financial Services Committee On June 26, 2013
Thomas Hoenig, former President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and now Vice Chair of the FDIC, told the Committee that the biggest banks are “woefully undercapitalized” and that we have a “very vulnerable financial system.” Hoenig was also a member of the Federal Reserve System’s Federal Open Market Committee from 1991 to 2011. Hoenig is so convinced of the utter failure of Dodd-Frank that he is strongly advocating the restoration of the Glass-Steagall Act which would force the separation of banks holding insured deposits from Wall Street brokerage firms and investment banks.
Richard Fisher, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said “I don’t think we have prevented taxpayer bailouts by Dodd-Frank” and added that the legislation “enmeshes us in hyper bureaucracy.”
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