Out in the Open
Most of the regulatory reform deals have been cut in private, but House and Senate banking panel leaders pledged Friday to hash out final legislation in the public eye.
Speaking after a meeting with President Obama, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd also said they planned to move quickly to finalize a bill before the July 4 recess.
The two declined to take any questions about how they will work out the final bill, other than to pledge an open process. "I will guarantee you this, whatever the final resolution of any of these issues is, they will be presented publicly in conference and they will be subject to votes," Frank said.
When asked if the conference would be broadcast on television as the Massachusetts Democrat requested, he responded, "I'm not the director of C-Span," before answering more seriously.
"It's a conference that is publicly open," Frank said. "We've got a first session here to get all the bloviating out of the way and the stupid opening statements and then we'll get to work."
Homefront Offensive
The public vitriol against bankers reached a new low last week when protestors with signs and bullhorns descended on the home of Greg Baer, a former official in the Clinton Treasury who is now deputy general counsel for corporate law at Bank of America Corp. The protest was organized by SEIU and National People's Action against B of A's role in the foreclosure crisis.
But rather than calling attention to their cause, the groups invited attention to their methods.
Baer was not in his home, in Chevy Chase, Md., when the protestors arrived, but his 15-year-old son Jack was, and he barricaded himself in the bathroom and called Baer for help. Baer drove to his neighborhood, and had to leave his younger son in the car parked on another street while he waded through the protestors to retrieve Jack.
Although the groups moved on to other executives' homes, it was Baer's story that got national attention. The Huffington Post wrote a piece supporting the protest, and Fortune magazine featured an online column from one of its reporters, Nina Easton, a neighbor of Baer's, condemning it.
"When hundreds of loud and angry strangers are descending on your family, your children, and your home, a more apt description of this assemblage would be 'mob,'" she wrote.
"The Glenn Beck Program" also picked up on it, with the conservative host accusing SEIU of intimidation tactics.
"Why not just protest at the office?" Beck said. "Do you have to bring it to someone's front door?"
SEIU responded by attacking Easton, accusing her husband of having business ties to B of A, while National People's Action wrote a piece for the Huffington Post defending its actions.
"Bank of America came to the homes of millions of Americans when they engaged in predatory lending that helped drive the financial crisis," wrote George Goehl, the group's executive director.
But Beck noted that no one offered a reason why the groups specifically targeted Baer.
"Did he do something, or is it just that he worked for the bank?"
Where Is Everyone?
Of all the positive indicators the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. could have included in the Quarterly Banking Profile Thursday, one missing was the lighter attendance at the agency's release of the report. In a sign of the media's appetite for bad news, as well as optimism perhaps over a banking recovery, the sixth-floor boardroom at the FDIC's headquarters lacked the cramped atmosphere of recent QBP briefings.
To be sure, the press corps did not ignore it, but only the newswires paid it much attention — unlike briefings in 2008 and 2009, when the crisis spurred heavy attendance. Like most of the QBP, maybe the smaller turnout is a sign of more improvement to come. "We had less than half a dozen reporters showing up in '06 and '07 when things were going so well in the banking industry," an FDIC spokesman said.
Atkins Out
Former Securities and Exchange Commissioner Paul Atkins resigned Thursday from his post on the five-member Congressional Oversight Panel.
Atkins will be succeeded by Kenneth Troske, the director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Kentucky. Troske, an expert in labor economics, chairs the university's economics department.
