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Bull By The Horns: Fighting To Save Main Street From Wall Street And Wall Street From Itself (2012)

by Sheila Bair(Favorite Author)

3.9 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1451672489 (ISBN13: 9781451672480)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Free Press

review 1: Solid, fascinating account of the politics and decisions made during the financial crisis from the perspective of the head of the FDIC. I thought reading this book would make me mad. It did not. It made me furious. Sheila pulls no punches and names names, including poorly managed institutions, individuals and agencies who worked at cross purposes. All the dysfunction and infighting you're familiar with at your own company? Imagine that on a government wide scale, with an industry that has most of the regulatory agencies captive and millions of homeowners in the lurch. I was heartened to hear about the changes which made it into law in the Dodd-Frank bill and how that bill was constucted, and have been inspired to follow this story to see how the industry (with congressiona... morel help) is presently lobbying to delay, defeat and eliminate its implementation.I appreciated the chapter on "too small to save" which gives an account of the day to day operations of the FDIC - just how do they go about resolving failing institutions? Great insight. That chapter also highlights how politically charged some of these resolutions can be, for example almost any bank in Chicago falls into this category.Highly recommended. Thoroughly researched, engaging narrative with clear perspective given on potentially complex issues.
review 2: Ms Bair served as head of FDIC for four years under W. and one year under O. This book has a wee bit of Ms Bair's history, and a great dollop of the in-fighting she encountered from the Fed and from Treasury. This was, we should recall, the time just before and just after the great sub-prime mortgage collapse. The issues causing the collapse received some attention, even though the focus was on financial reform, opposed tooth and nail by the now-rather-discredited (if you read the financial news on Reuters) Timothy Geithner as well as by the general "markets-are-self-regulating-so-we-can-ignore-them" attitude at the Fed, presumably left over from Alan Greenspan's many years there.As a side-bar, during the run-up to the 2012 election, Ms Bair graced the Bill Mahr show with an appearance. When asked whether she supported Romney (she is a Republican), she responded that she could support neither candidate because neither had as a platform plank the restructuring of the financial system. Diogenes, are you paying attention? less

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