“Sheila is the skunk at the picnic,” the liberal economist and former American Prospect editor Robert Kuttner tells The New Yorker this week. He meant it in a nice way! When it comes to Wall Street, he said, the FDIC chairwoman is the “often the only voice on the other side,” i.e. the only person with balls big enough (metaphorical balls, as Sheila is of course a lady) to shut down the questionable plans of banking behemoths. Case in point: Today The Wall Street Journal reports how Sheila sprayed her stink juice all over Citigroup and other big banks’ plans to game Tim Geithner’s public-private investment program by using TARP cash to buy their own toxic assets, bringing that picnic to an unceremonious end.
Wary Banks Hobble Toxic-Asset Plan [WSJ]
Sheila Bair, the FDIC and The Financial Crisis [NYer]
