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Almost two years after the Wall Street meltdown collapsed the
economy and threw 8 million Americans out of work, the Financial Crisis
Inquiry Commission gets underway January 13th in Washington, D.C.
Will there be a new Ferdinand Pecora to get to the bottom of things?
Almost two years after the Wall Street meltdown collapsed the
economy and threw 8 million Americans out of work, the Financial Crisis
Inquiry Commission gets underway January 13th in Washington, D.C.
Will there be a new Ferdinand Pecora to get to the bottom of things?
In the aftermath of the devastation of the 1929 stock market crash,
some in Congress wanted answers. In 1933, the Senate banking committee
launched an investigative commission to ferret out the fraud and
corruption that led to the Great Depression. It hired a former
Manhattan Assistant District Attorney with experience in financial
crimes, Ferdinand Pecora, as its chief counsel.
Historian Ron Chernow described Pecora for the New York Times:
"Born in Sicily, the son of an immigrant cobbler, Pecora had campaigned
for Teddy Roosevelt and been imbued with the crusading fervor of the
Progressive Era. As a prosecutor in the 1920s, he had shut down more
than 100 'bucket shops' - seamy, fly-by-night brokerage houses - and
this had tutored him in the shady side of Wall Street."
With black eyes, dark curly hair and a penchant for chomping on cigars,
Pecora cut a colorful figure. But more importantly, he was driven and
meticulous. He showed no mercy for the Wall Street Titans he put on the
stand which included the progenitors of American banking, Morgans,
Rockefellers and Lamonts.
Pecora's staff was a slice of America and included an Irish-American
journalist by the name of John Flynn and Max Lowenthal, a Jewish
lawyer. Flynn later wrote:
"I looked with astonishment at this man who, through the intricate
mazes of banking, syndicates, market deals, chicanery of all sorts, and
in a field new to him, never forgot a name, never made an error in a
figure, and never lost his temper."
The vigorous Pecora commission interviewed hundreds, including
financial magnates, their underlings, brokers and analysts, compiled
12,000 page of testimony and paved the way for a major financial
services overhaul. The 1933 Glass Stegall Act, the 1934 Securities and
Exchange Act of 1934 and other legislation protected the economy for
the next 60 years. When these reforms unraveled in the 1980s and 1990s,
the ground was laid for a "boom and bail" economy.
The new Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission authorized by Congress in
2009 is charged with investigating causes of the meltdown including
mortgage fraud, capital and leveraging requirements, lending standards,
derivatives, shady accounting practices and regulatory capture. It's
also instructed to examine the causes of the collapse of the major
financial institutions that failed, as well as those that survived with
taxpayers' help.
Will the new investigative commission produce a new Pecora? It's
possible. There are standouts among its members including Brooksley
Born, ex-chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. She was
lauded for foreseeing the problem with black book derivatives trading
in the 1990s but was famously shot down by Larry Summers, then
undersecretary at Treasury, now top White House adviser. Former U.S.
Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) also showed his independence and
distinguished himself when, as the head of the Senate Intelligence
Committee, he was the only member of that committee to vote against the
war in Iraq. The chairman, Phil Angelides, served as California State
Treasurer from 1999 to 2007. He was well-known for pushing for
disclosure and transparency for investments by CalPERS, the $200
billion state pension fund, and for threatening to stop giving state
business to Wall Street firms that didn't meet conflict-of-interest
standards.
A vigorous independent inquiry could fill the void left by the abject
failure of the criminal justice system to hold the biggest Wall Street
firms accountable. The Justice Department and the FBI have been so slow
to bring prosecutions that state attorneys general have been left to
pick up the slack and bring major cases against credit rating agencies,
big banks and mortgage firms. But the commission's challenges are
steep. It will have to avoid the usual Washington pitfall of an
unworkable partisan divide. It will also only have one year to
undertake its inquiry. Its final report is due in December of 2010.
When the commission was formed, Angelides told the Los Angeles Times:
"Here's the big picture. The commission's role is to be a pursuer of
the truth. If we commit ourselves to pursuing the facts and uncovering
whatever is underneath whatever rock, we will do Americans a great
service. And hopefully avoid this kind of thing happening again in the
foreseeable future."
Angelides struck just the right note, but much work lies ahead for the
commission to fulfill this promise. Today, almost two years after the
crash, no employee of any major American financial institution is
behind bars. If the commission fails to defrock the high priests of
finance to expose the deception of consumers, rampant accounting fraud
and the complicity of regulators they will have betrayed the American
taxpayer and failed their historic mandate of preventing the next
crisis.
(For a full list of Financial Inquiry Commission members, their professional and political associations see Bloomberg News, California's Angelides to Lead Financial Crisis Probe.)
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Almost two years after the Wall Street meltdown collapsed the
economy and threw 8 million Americans out of work, the Financial Crisis
Inquiry Commission gets underway January 13th in Washington, D.C.
Will there be a new Ferdinand Pecora to get to the bottom of things?
In the aftermath of the devastation of the 1929 stock market crash,
some in Congress wanted answers. In 1933, the Senate banking committee
launched an investigative commission to ferret out the fraud and
corruption that led to the Great Depression. It hired a former
Manhattan Assistant District Attorney with experience in financial
crimes, Ferdinand Pecora, as its chief counsel.
Historian Ron Chernow described Pecora for the New York Times:
"Born in Sicily, the son of an immigrant cobbler, Pecora had campaigned
for Teddy Roosevelt and been imbued with the crusading fervor of the
Progressive Era. As a prosecutor in the 1920s, he had shut down more
than 100 'bucket shops' - seamy, fly-by-night brokerage houses - and
this had tutored him in the shady side of Wall Street."
With black eyes, dark curly hair and a penchant for chomping on cigars,
Pecora cut a colorful figure. But more importantly, he was driven and
meticulous. He showed no mercy for the Wall Street Titans he put on the
stand which included the progenitors of American banking, Morgans,
Rockefellers and Lamonts.
Pecora's staff was a slice of America and included an Irish-American
journalist by the name of John Flynn and Max Lowenthal, a Jewish
lawyer. Flynn later wrote:
"I looked with astonishment at this man who, through the intricate
mazes of banking, syndicates, market deals, chicanery of all sorts, and
in a field new to him, never forgot a name, never made an error in a
figure, and never lost his temper."
The vigorous Pecora commission interviewed hundreds, including
financial magnates, their underlings, brokers and analysts, compiled
12,000 page of testimony and paved the way for a major financial
services overhaul. The 1933 Glass Stegall Act, the 1934 Securities and
Exchange Act of 1934 and other legislation protected the economy for
the next 60 years. When these reforms unraveled in the 1980s and 1990s,
the ground was laid for a "boom and bail" economy.
The new Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission authorized by Congress in
2009 is charged with investigating causes of the meltdown including
mortgage fraud, capital and leveraging requirements, lending standards,
derivatives, shady accounting practices and regulatory capture. It's
also instructed to examine the causes of the collapse of the major
financial institutions that failed, as well as those that survived with
taxpayers' help.
Will the new investigative commission produce a new Pecora? It's
possible. There are standouts among its members including Brooksley
Born, ex-chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. She was
lauded for foreseeing the problem with black book derivatives trading
in the 1990s but was famously shot down by Larry Summers, then
undersecretary at Treasury, now top White House adviser. Former U.S.
Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) also showed his independence and
distinguished himself when, as the head of the Senate Intelligence
Committee, he was the only member of that committee to vote against the
war in Iraq. The chairman, Phil Angelides, served as California State
Treasurer from 1999 to 2007. He was well-known for pushing for
disclosure and transparency for investments by CalPERS, the $200
billion state pension fund, and for threatening to stop giving state
business to Wall Street firms that didn't meet conflict-of-interest
standards.
A vigorous independent inquiry could fill the void left by the abject
failure of the criminal justice system to hold the biggest Wall Street
firms accountable. The Justice Department and the FBI have been so slow
to bring prosecutions that state attorneys general have been left to
pick up the slack and bring major cases against credit rating agencies,
big banks and mortgage firms. But the commission's challenges are
steep. It will have to avoid the usual Washington pitfall of an
unworkable partisan divide. It will also only have one year to
undertake its inquiry. Its final report is due in December of 2010.
When the commission was formed, Angelides told the Los Angeles Times:
"Here's the big picture. The commission's role is to be a pursuer of
the truth. If we commit ourselves to pursuing the facts and uncovering
whatever is underneath whatever rock, we will do Americans a great
service. And hopefully avoid this kind of thing happening again in the
foreseeable future."
Angelides struck just the right note, but much work lies ahead for the
commission to fulfill this promise. Today, almost two years after the
crash, no employee of any major American financial institution is
behind bars. If the commission fails to defrock the high priests of
finance to expose the deception of consumers, rampant accounting fraud
and the complicity of regulators they will have betrayed the American
taxpayer and failed their historic mandate of preventing the next
crisis.
(For a full list of Financial Inquiry Commission members, their professional and political associations see Bloomberg News, California's Angelides to Lead Financial Crisis Probe.)
Almost two years after the Wall Street meltdown collapsed the
economy and threw 8 million Americans out of work, the Financial Crisis
Inquiry Commission gets underway January 13th in Washington, D.C.
Will there be a new Ferdinand Pecora to get to the bottom of things?
In the aftermath of the devastation of the 1929 stock market crash,
some in Congress wanted answers. In 1933, the Senate banking committee
launched an investigative commission to ferret out the fraud and
corruption that led to the Great Depression. It hired a former
Manhattan Assistant District Attorney with experience in financial
crimes, Ferdinand Pecora, as its chief counsel.
Historian Ron Chernow described Pecora for the New York Times:
"Born in Sicily, the son of an immigrant cobbler, Pecora had campaigned
for Teddy Roosevelt and been imbued with the crusading fervor of the
Progressive Era. As a prosecutor in the 1920s, he had shut down more
than 100 'bucket shops' - seamy, fly-by-night brokerage houses - and
this had tutored him in the shady side of Wall Street."
With black eyes, dark curly hair and a penchant for chomping on cigars,
Pecora cut a colorful figure. But more importantly, he was driven and
meticulous. He showed no mercy for the Wall Street Titans he put on the
stand which included the progenitors of American banking, Morgans,
Rockefellers and Lamonts.
Pecora's staff was a slice of America and included an Irish-American
journalist by the name of John Flynn and Max Lowenthal, a Jewish
lawyer. Flynn later wrote:
"I looked with astonishment at this man who, through the intricate
mazes of banking, syndicates, market deals, chicanery of all sorts, and
in a field new to him, never forgot a name, never made an error in a
figure, and never lost his temper."
The vigorous Pecora commission interviewed hundreds, including
financial magnates, their underlings, brokers and analysts, compiled
12,000 page of testimony and paved the way for a major financial
services overhaul. The 1933 Glass Stegall Act, the 1934 Securities and
Exchange Act of 1934 and other legislation protected the economy for
the next 60 years. When these reforms unraveled in the 1980s and 1990s,
the ground was laid for a "boom and bail" economy.
The new Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission authorized by Congress in
2009 is charged with investigating causes of the meltdown including
mortgage fraud, capital and leveraging requirements, lending standards,
derivatives, shady accounting practices and regulatory capture. It's
also instructed to examine the causes of the collapse of the major
financial institutions that failed, as well as those that survived with
taxpayers' help.
Will the new investigative commission produce a new Pecora? It's
possible. There are standouts among its members including Brooksley
Born, ex-chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. She was
lauded for foreseeing the problem with black book derivatives trading
in the 1990s but was famously shot down by Larry Summers, then
undersecretary at Treasury, now top White House adviser. Former U.S.
Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) also showed his independence and
distinguished himself when, as the head of the Senate Intelligence
Committee, he was the only member of that committee to vote against the
war in Iraq. The chairman, Phil Angelides, served as California State
Treasurer from 1999 to 2007. He was well-known for pushing for
disclosure and transparency for investments by CalPERS, the $200
billion state pension fund, and for threatening to stop giving state
business to Wall Street firms that didn't meet conflict-of-interest
standards.
A vigorous independent inquiry could fill the void left by the abject
failure of the criminal justice system to hold the biggest Wall Street
firms accountable. The Justice Department and the FBI have been so slow
to bring prosecutions that state attorneys general have been left to
pick up the slack and bring major cases against credit rating agencies,
big banks and mortgage firms. But the commission's challenges are
steep. It will have to avoid the usual Washington pitfall of an
unworkable partisan divide. It will also only have one year to
undertake its inquiry. Its final report is due in December of 2010.
When the commission was formed, Angelides told the Los Angeles Times:
"Here's the big picture. The commission's role is to be a pursuer of
the truth. If we commit ourselves to pursuing the facts and uncovering
whatever is underneath whatever rock, we will do Americans a great
service. And hopefully avoid this kind of thing happening again in the
foreseeable future."
Angelides struck just the right note, but much work lies ahead for the
commission to fulfill this promise. Today, almost two years after the
crash, no employee of any major American financial institution is
behind bars. If the commission fails to defrock the high priests of
finance to expose the deception of consumers, rampant accounting fraud
and the complicity of regulators they will have betrayed the American
taxpayer and failed their historic mandate of preventing the next
crisis.
(For a full list of Financial Inquiry Commission members, their professional and political associations see Bloomberg News, California's Angelides to Lead Financial Crisis Probe.)