New “Pecora Commission” To Be Named This Week? Who Would You Appoint?
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Last week, Reuters speculated on potential nominees for the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, a sort of successor to the famed Pecora Commission. The planted list of CW-approved possibilities was underwhelming:
A short list of names has emerged for the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission that includes former Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson; former Democratic head of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission Brooksley Born; and Alex Pollock, a fellow at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Fred Thompson? Seriously?!?! That is the best we could possibly do? Praise the free market and pass the prune juice, what a country.
Most Americans do not know that the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission is on the verge of naming its members. Nor do they know what difference the right people could make, not just in nailing the culprits behind the market meltdown, but ensuring that we enact reforms that actually reform the flaws in our flimsy regulations.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Minority Leader John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will be naming the commission members soon, most likely this week. Now is the time to let them know the type of person you want to have subpoena power on your behalf.
Time to get the word out to folks on the Hill: we are watching what you do. And we expect you to do this carefully, thoughtfully and intelligently, putting the interests of all Americans and not just your biggest donors front and center.
Keep this in mind, Beltway gang: when even Justice Antonin Scalia sees a need for more stringent regulation? Wall Street has a big problem that isn’t going to be fixed by trying to sweep things under the rug.
To that end, if you were doing the appointments, who would you want on a new Pecora Commission? And why? Bob Kuttner takes a stab at a wish list here. I’d like to see yours. Let’s put together a "dream team" list for this committee.
I’ll see what I can do to get it into the hands of people who need to see it.
For background on the Pecora Commission, we’ve had a series of posts on this, including:
– Pecora In Perspective: Everything Old Is New Again
— Pecora In Perspective: Why Do We Need A New Commission?
— Pecora in Perspective: Glossary Of Useful Terms
— Hank Greenburg and the AIG Mystery Stock Sale
— Bill Black Responds To Pelosi’s Call For Pecora Commission
— The Pecora Committee In Context: The Myth Of The Banking Culture
— The Pecora Committee In Context: Mythbusting
— To Bow Or Not To Bow To Wall Street
Morning all — looks like we’ll be getting some rain here today. Which is good — we could use it.
Here’s the list of potential members from Kuttner — am interested to see who you all think would be good, too:
Some good nominees would be former SEC Commissioner Harvey Goldschmid, now a law professor at Columbia; Elizabeth Warren, Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel; Damon Silvers, the AFL-CIO’s top expert on financial markets and Deputy Chair of the oversight panel; economists Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia or Nouriel Roubini of NYU or James Galbraith of the University of Texas or Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research; one-time Wall Streeters and now astute financial critics Nomi Prins, Rob Johnson, Ron Bloom or Richard Bookstaber; former financial regulators Bill Black or Ellen Seidman; or law professors and deregulation critics Frank Partnoy of the University of San Diego or James D. Cox of Duke.