Black

Is Timothy Geithner going to sandbag Obama and his good intentions to straighten out our economy from the decider's flaccid legacy of deregulation and Wall Street shell games?

From liar’s loans to mortgage-backed securities to AIG’s credit default swaps, the "masters of the universe" were given free rein under Bush’s languid reign to trash our cash and pile their own personal fortunes on towers of babble under faulty pretenses. And then Henry Paulson and a lot of the same characters who did all this have been asked to fix it. Doesn’t that sound a little bit like asking the nuts to run the nuthouse?

"For months now, revelations of the wholesale greed and blatant transgressions of Wall Street have reminded us that ‘The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One,’" Bill Moyers opened his Journal tonight. "In fact, the man you're about to meet wrote a book with just that title," he continued as he introduced William K. Black. "It was based upon his experience as a tough regulator during one of the darkest chapters in our financial history: the savings and loan scandal in the late 1980s."

And then Black revealed his professional and incredulous assessment of the fine mess we’re in now and how we should get out of it:

So stop that current system. We're hiding the losses, instead of trying to find out the real losses. Stop that, because you need good information to make good decisions, right? Follow what works instead of what's failed. Start appointing people who have records of success, instead of records of failure. That would be another nice place to start. There are lots of things we can do. Even today, as late as it is. Even though they've had a terrible start to the administration. They could change, and they could change within weeks. And by the way, the folks who are the better regulators, they paid their taxes. So, you can get them through the vetting process a lot quicker.

Black is right, of course. It’s worth reading his remarks here if you haven’t already seen the interview. And keep your eye on Geithner. He talks fast.