FCIC

Fukushima is "a very huge disaster that has caused very large damage at a nuclear power generation plant on a scale that we had not expected," according to the deputy director general of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

But the risk of disaster was easily calculated, and an effective regulator would have demanded that the Tokyo Electric Power Company take the appropriate precautions. That didn't happen. The ugly truth, here and in Japan, is this: Unless government regains the will and the ability to regulate private industry, more catastrophes are all but inevitable.

Corporate money has come to dominate politics, so change won't come easily. Citizens will need to push for it as if their lives depended on it - because they do.

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The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission's report couldn't come at a better time. At a moment when it seems that Washington would rather forget what happened two years ago, it documents the opportunism, bad judgment, and criminality that crashed the world's economy once - and could again at any time. An interconnected web of Wall Street criminality, discredited ideology, and politicians chasing big money - along with a surprising amount of executive incompetence - has caused continued suffering for millions. At a time when the nation's capital is convinced that CEOs need appeasing rather than policing, the FCIC report is a badly needed return to reality.

Wall Street executives weren't mentioned in the State of the Union or the Republican response. But their actions caused this crisis, and they can't be ignored politely like tipsy uncles at a family wedding. The only way to prevent the next crisis is by understanding the last one - and then taking the right actions.

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What's the worst thing about Darrell Issa's debut as Chairman of the House Oversight Committee? It could be his relentless, Gloria Swansonish, "I'm ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille" self promotion. It might be his manic insistence that he'll conduct "hundreds" of investigations,or his letters to lobbyists offering to put his new powers at their disposal. Or maybe it's his "hang 'em first and try 'em later" attitude toward the Administration. It's certainly ironic that his first act as head of the committee that investigates misuse of government funds seems to have been ... to misuse government funds.

Sure, they're all bad. But the worst of all may be this: Issa's making it clear that he'll use his position to cover up Wall Street's role in destroying the economy, and that he'll resist any attempts to rein in the corporate misbehavior that puts us all at risk. That's a shame: Issa once seemed like a fair-minded, independent voice, and he could have made an important contribution in his new position. Instead he's bent on becoming a tinpot Torquemada bent on harrassing and punishing anyone who tries to thwart corporate America's will. more »

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Peter J. Wallison has a bright future ... as a surrealist author.. He and the other Republicans on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission tried to undermine that group's work by attempting to ban phrases like "Wall Street" from its final report. Now he's trying to rebut news reports about their behavior. His response is a brilliant example of what might be called "uninentional literature," a hallucinogenic mashup of Lewis Carroll and George Orwell that belongs on everyone's shelf.

News reports said that Wallison and his fellow Republicans on the Commission also wanted to ban the words "shadow banking," "interconnection," and "deregulation" from a report on the Great Recession and its causes. That's like banning the phrase "plastic surgery" from a story about the Kardashians.

Not true, insists Wallison. "Only in the fever-swamps of the left could anyone believe that," he writes. For example, Wallison says he and his colleagues merely objected to the Commission's use of "Wall Street" as "a general term for the financial system." Wallison says it's unacceptable, politically motivated, and imprecise to use the phrase "Wall Street" as if it referred to the controlling financial interests of the United States.

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(This is the second in a two-part response to the attempted Republican sabotage of the Federal Crisis Inquiry Commission. Part One is here.)

sabotage [ˈsæbəˌtɑːʒ] n. 1. the deliberate destruction, disruption, or damage of equipment, a public service, etc., as by enemy agents, dissatisfied employees, etc. 2. any similar action or behaviour.
- Collins English Dictionary

The Republican Party's Sleeper Cell in the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission has finally done its dirty work. The four GOP Commissioners staged a phony crisis as a pretext for walking out, and now there are a lot of headlines like this one: "Crisis Panel's Split on Blaming Wall Street May Limit Impact of Findings." This is Wall Street's message to its four operatives on the Commission: Mission accomplished.

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A sleeper cell of four Republicans struck the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission this week, escalating what had been previously been a campaign of covert obstruction into an overt act of sabotage. That act should be seen for what it is: A "denial of service attack" on bipartisan cooperation and public deliberation, designed to destroy the Commission's work and discredit its findings.

The subversives also released a document which they characterized without any apparent embarrassment as a "primer." You may remember that "primers" are the simple books used to teach small children, like the Dick and Jane reading series, My Little Book of Dinosaurs, or So You Want to be a Lobbyist.

But the most important book the saboteurs used was the Republican playbook - for disrupting, subverting, and destroying government institutions. Pay attention to that playbook. It's been used before, and it will be used again. more »

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Last week, Federal Chairman Ben Bernanke finally acknowledged that his preferred "solution" for ending Too-Big-To-Fail is likely unworkable. more »

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1:20

All done. Lesson: Break Up The Banks.

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1:00

Most of the discussion surrounding too-big-to-fail at this hearing has dealt with a relatively short period in time: the decision to bailout a firm, and what happened right after that decision.

This is an important part of the issue, but it's by no means the whole story. more »

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3:45

Clearly the best FCIC hearing to date. Tough questions all around. Everybody comes out of it looking bad, bankers and regulators alike, as they should.

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3:30 more »

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