On the first day of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, Phil Angelides demonstrated a gift for powerful and memorable metaphor: accusing Goldman Sachs of essentially selling defective cars and then taking out insurance on the buyers. Lloyd Blankfein and the other CEOs looked mildly uncomfortable, and this image reinforces the case for a tax on big banks--details to be provided by the president later today.
But the question is: How to keep up the pressure and move the debate forward? If we stop with a few verbal slaps on the wrist and a relatively minor new levy, then we have achieved basically nothing. We need people more broadly to grasp the dangerous financial “risk system” we have created and to agree that it needs to be dismantled completely.
One way to do this would be for the Commission to call key people from Citigroup to testify.
This would not be as part of a large panel with other firms. This would be a drill down into the history, structure, and attitudes involved in building what became the country’s largest bank--and then in driving it into the ground. My full proposal is on the Daily Beast today, but in summary I would question Vikram Pandit and Chuck Prince at length and then pull in Sandy Weil and Robert Rubin.
This is not about the individuals; it’s about the system. But the only way that broader mainstream opinion will change is if it sees and hears from the people who thought they had everything under control. And--let’s face it--Citi has been at the center of all major international financial crises over the past 30 years; its alumni have top positions in our administration; and no one thinks it is a well-run organization.
It’s the human dimension of big bank hubris that will grip the popular imagination. That, and the great fortunes they accumulated at your expense.