Democrats name financial crisis investigators

[depakid]

Source: Reuters

Brooksley Born, a former head of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission who also warned about unwarranted risks in the U.S. financial system, was appointed on Wednesday to help investigate the causes of the U.S. and global financial crisis. Democratic leaders also named former California state treasurer Phil Angelides to chair the inquiry. But Born's appointment attracted more immediate attention because of her prominence in warning about financial risks before the crisis struck.

Congress has established a 10-member Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission that is supposed to produce a final report by Dec. 15, 2010.

The other four commission members named by House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are: former Senator Bob Graham of Florida, Heather Murren, a retired managing director at Merrill Lynch, Byron Georgiou, a Las Vegas-based businessman and attorney, and John Thompson, Symantec Corp (SYMC.O) board chairman.

The four members appointed by Republicans are: Former House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, who will serve as vice chairman of the commission, Peter Wallison of the American Enterprise Institute, ex-Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Holtz-Eakin and former National Economic Council Director Keith Hennessey.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/americasRegulatoryNews/idUSN1535586520090715

[sfwriter]

1. Where can I find their backgrounds, aside from Wikipedia?

Has anyone profiled them?

[Mr. Sparkle]

2. Peter Wallison of the American Enterprise Institute? thats a right wing think tank.

which is funded by big business. I'm sure he is going to be very helpful. /sarcasm

His role, I would guess is that, he is there in order to protect the righties and give big business an avenue into the investigation.

[truedelphi]

4. Geihtner and Bernanke couldn't have been happier if

They had made the choices themselves. (Which of coursse, maybe they did. Obama now has this talking point that during the time that he spent nineteen months running for the Presidency, he just didn't think about the economy at all, as he was too busy thinking about the two wars.)

The only problem for the entrenched Goldman Sachs-affiliated economic Big Shots is Born - and of course, if she gets riled up about anything, she can be encouraged to take trips in private planes, I guess.

[truedelphi]

3. Born should have been the first choice - but it's good to hear she

Is being given some power.

Angelides is always the Dems fallback guy. He owes a great deal to the Democratic Party Gatekeepers, like Di Feinstein.

It is because of her seeing that he got picked to run against Ahnold, the state of California got Ahnold (Which is what Di Fi needs - if it is true she plans to be governor of this state after Ahnold is through)

[seafan]

5. Glad to see Bob Graham's appointment confirmed from the heads-up yesterday.

Democrats name financial crisis investigators, July 15, 2009


Bob Graham on financial crisis committee?, July 14, 2009

[PSPS]

6. If only we still had Ferdinand Pecora

National Affairs: Wealth on Trial
(Time Magazine: Monday, June 12, 1933)

(snip)

The real showman of the Morgan investigation, however, was not a circus pressagent. nor a Senator but the kinky-haired, olive-skinned, jut-jawed lawyer from Manhattan named Ferdinand ("Pick") Pecora. Because Senator Fletcher, who at 74 looks like a wealthy Yankee visitor to his own Florida, is not another "Tom"' Walsh with the mental capacity to prosecute his own investigations, Lawyer Pecora was hired last January as the committee's counsel at $255 per month. He had spent weeks ransacking the records of the House of Morgan for material for this trial of a lifetime. In his first fortnight's performance he proved himself a worthy match for white-haired John William Davis, patrician counsel for Banker Morgan.

Ferdinand Pecora was born in Nicosia, Sicily 51 years ago. His grandfather trooped with Garibaldi. His father, a cobbler, took him to the U. S. when he was 5. He attended public school, started to study for the Episcopal ministry, turned aside to the law. In 1912 he campaigned for Theodore Roosevelt. In 1916 he voted for Wilson. Two years later Tammany gave him a job as deputy assistant district attorney. Until 1930 when he retired, his brains really ran that office where he was the principal courtroom prosecutor. He put more than a hundred "bucket shops" out of business and thereby learned the shady side of the brokerage business. He sent State Superintendent of Banks Frank Warder to Sing Sing for taking bribes in the City Trust Co. scandal. He convicted Anti-Saloon Leaguer William H. Anderson of forgery. He prosecuted bail bond racketeers, crooked milk inspectors, big-time thugs—with 80% convictions. He was in charge of the District Attorney's office in 1923 when Anna Marie ("Dot King") Keenan, Broadway "sweetie," was murdered. For days he withheld from the Press the name of John Kearsley Mitchell, "Dot King's" benefactor, son-in-law of Morgan Partner Edward Townsend Stotes-bury, to save Mitchells family from "needless humiliation and suffering.'"

[Zorra]

7. Letting republicans appoint members insures that the FCIC will surely be

corrupted and sabotaged in any and every way possible.

[elleng]

8. BROOKSLEY! FINALLY!!!

This may be the greatest appointment, CERTAINLY the best in 'financial' area!

:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

[depakid]

9. Next best thing to a top position at one of the regulatory agencies

Which, based on the record- is what she deserved. Then again, maybe even better that she's on the team that does the autopsy.

[elleng]

10. Better or not, I don't know,

but GREAT that she participates in the autopsy.