Are They Letting the Big Boys Off the Hook?

As of noon on Day 1, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission is not playing hard ball with the CEOs of the largest financial institutions in the world. The commissioners have a golden moment to puncture the myths that justify Wall Street’s enormous grab of America’s wealth. In addition to the AIG/GeithnerGate questions mentioned in the previous post, here are a few questions that they failed to ask this mornting:

1. Now that you’ve paid back TARP, how much government support are you getting currently from various government programs? Phil Angelides almost got there but never quite asked the question. It’s key because it would punch through the PR spin that says the big banks have paid back the government. The reality is that these highly profitable institutions are still taking advantage of an array of government financial programs that are padding their bottom lines and bonus pools.

2. Given all the mergers that have taken place during the crisis, is your institution, right now, too big to fail? If so, shouldn't we break you up? The committee should be setting up the basis for the break up of these giant companies. Keith Hennessey, a Republican, started to get there. The other commissioners should help him follow-up.

3. How do you justify having your employees receive 10 to 100 times what the leading neurosurgeons receive? The commission needs to point out that the pay scale is wildly excessive in the financial markets and that it represents a distortion of our system. The free market alone cannot correct it. There is no economic justification for it.

4. Are your banks paying for lobbyists that are working against efforts to create a Financial Consumer Protection Agency? This is the perfect time to get these bankers to explain how they are lobbying against the public's interest.

5. Given all the support you have received (and are still receiving), and given all the damage your industry has done to the economy and to the lives of millions of Americans, why shouldn’t the government place a windfall profits tax on your near record profits and bonuses? This might lead to pressure for the Obama administration to get back some of our money.

Les Leopold is the author of The Looting of America: How Wall Street's Game of Fantasy Finance destroyed our Jobs, Pensions and Prosperity, and What We Can Do About It Chelsea Green Publishing, June 2009.

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future