12 January 2010

Related:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/opinion/10rich.html

The Other Plot to Wreck America

What we don’t know will hurt us, and quite possibly on a more devastating scale than any Qaeda attack. Americans must be told the full story of how Wall Street gamed and inflated the housing bubble, made out like bandits, and then left millions of households in ruin. Without that reckoning, there will be no public clamor for serious reform of a financial system that was as cunningly breached as airline security at the Amsterdam airport. And without reform, another massive attack on our economic security is guaranteed. Now that it can count on government bailouts, Wall Street has more incentive than ever to pump up its risks — secure that it can keep the bonanzas while we get stuck with the losses.

It’s against this backdrop that this week’s long-awaited initial public hearings of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission are so critical. This is the bipartisan panel that Congress mandated last spring to investigate the still murky story of what happened in the meltdown. Phil Angelides, the former California treasurer who is the inquiry’s chairman, told me in interviews late last year that he has been busy deploying a tough investigative staff and will not allow the proceedings to devolve into a typical blue-ribbon Beltway exercise in toothless bloviation.

He wants to examine the financial sector’s “greed, stupidity, hubris and outright corruption” — from traders on the ground to the board room. “It’s important that we deliver new information,” he said. “We can’t just rehash what we’ve known to date.” He understands that if he fails to make news or to tell the story in a way that is comprehensible and compelling enough to arouse Americans to demand action, Wall Street and Washington will both keep moving on, unchallenged and unchastened.

[Federal Register: January 12, 2010 (Volume 75, Number 7)]
[Notices]               
[Page 1583]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr12ja10-27]                         

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Notices
                                                Federal Register
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[[Page 1583]]



FINANCIAL CRISIS INQUIRY COMMISSION

 
Notice of Open Meeting

SUMMARY: The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) announces that 
it will hold its first public hearing, in which the Commission will 
begin its thorough examination of the root causes of the crisis by 
hearing testimony on the causes and current state of the crisis. Top 
leaders of both private and public sector entities that played critical 
roles in the crisis will testify.

DATES: The open meeting will be held on Wednesday, January 13, 2010, 
and Thursday, January 14, 2010, commencing on both days at 9 a.m.

ADDRESSES: The open meeting will be held in the hearing room of the 
Committee on Ways and Means U.S. House of Representatives, 1100 
Longworth House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: The Financial Crisis Inquiry 
Commission, 1717 Pennsylvania Avenue, Suite 800, Washington, DC 20006, 
202-292-2799, 202-632-1604 fax.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The purpose of the Financial Crisis Inquiry 
Commission is to examine the causes, domestic and global, of the 
current financial and economic crisis in the United States, per the 
requirements of the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009 
(``FERN's), Section 5, Public Law 111-21,123 Stat. 1617 (2009).
    Public Participation: The meeting is open to the public. The 
Chairman of the Commission will lead the meeting for the orderly 
conduct of business.

    Dated: January 7, 2009.
Phil Angelides,
Chairman, Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.
[FR Doc. 2010-442 Filed 1-11-10; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6820-RK-M