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E-MailAfter a year’s work reviewing millions of documents, interviewing over 700 witnesses, and conducting 19 days of hearings throughout America, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission issued its report on January 27, 2011. The Commission concluded that the 2008 Financial Crisis was an avoidable disaster caused by both private and public sector failings, including corporate mismanagement and excessive risk-taking on Wall Street and widespread failures in government regulation designed to preserve the safety and soundness of our financial system.
The mission of the Commission was to ask and answer this central question: how did it come to pass that in 2008 our nation was forced to choose between two stark alternatives–either risk the total collapse of our financial system and economy – or inject trillions of taxpayer dollars into the system and into private companies – even as millions of Americans still lost their jobs, their savings, and their homes.
To see how the Commission answered this question, review the report at http://www.fcic.gov/ or pick up a copy at your favorite bookstore.
2 Comments
The seminal debate is what risk will hurt you the most – either what you don’t know or what you know but don’t interpret properly and implement remedial action. Put another way, is it lack of data or lack of decisions? The lesson learned [or not] was that the key 2008 economic risks were not buried in data but rather in “plain view”. But “plain view” facts are not literally in plain view if you do not see them. Some refer to this as black swan risk management. Whatever you refer to it as, the circumstances of these past few years is a reminder that if you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. If so, how are we as a nation changing the way we look at things in 2011?
I think there are many people who should be held responsible for the situation we had to face. Do you remember the financial crisis in Greece where the EU officials didn’t disclose the information about the country’s rising debt – the result of irresponsible government spending which brought a number of detrimental consequences for the Greek people?