Source: AP / Huffington Post January 11, 2010

Next week, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission -- the bi-partisan 10-member panel established by Congress to examine the causes of the financial crisis -- will hold its first public hearings featuring a selection of the nation's top bank executives -- Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, John Mack of Morgan Stanley and Brian Moynihan of Bank of America.

On Sunday night, FCIC released the full witness list for the first public hearing. List and press release below:

The Commission will begin its thorough examination of the root causes of the crisis, hearing testimony on the causes and current state of the crisis from top leaders of both private and public sector entities.


When: Wednesday, January 13, 2010: 9:00 a.m. ET

Thursday, January 14, 2010: 9:00 a.m. ET

Where: 1100 Longworth House Office Building, Washington, DC

Day One

Panel 1: Financial Institution Representatives
Mr. Lloyd C. Blankfein, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer

Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.

Mr. James Dimon, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer

JPMorgan Chase & Company

Mr. John J. Mack, Chairman of the Board

Morgan Stanley

Mr. Brian T. Moynihan, Chief Executive Officer and President

Bank of America Corporation

Panel 2: Financial Market Participants

Mr. Michael Mayo, Managing Director and Financial Services Analyst

Calyon Securities (USA) Inc.

Mr. J. Kyle Bass, Managing Partner

Hayman Advisors, L.P.

Mr. Peter J. Solomon, Founder and Chairman

Peter J. Solomon Company

Panel 3: Financial Crisis Impacts on the Economy

Dr. Mark Zandi, Chief Economist and Co-founder

Moody's Economy.com

Dr. Kenneth T. Rosen, Chair, Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics

University of California, Berkeley

Ms. Julia Gordon, Senior Policy Counsel

Center for Responsible Lending

C.R. "Rusty" Cloutier, President and Chief Executive Officer

MidSouth Bank, N.A. and Past Chairman of the Independent Community Bankers Association


Day Two

Panel 1: Current Investigations into the Financial Crisis - Federal Officials

Honorable Eric H. Holder, Jr., Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice

Honorable Lanny A. Breuer, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division
U.S. Department of Justice

Honorable Sheila C. Bair, Chairman

U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

Honorable Mary L. Schapiro, Chairman

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

Panel 2: Current Investigations into the Financial Crisis - State and Local Officials

Honorable Lisa Madigan, Attorney General

State of Illinois

Honorable John W. Suthers, Attorney General

State of Colorado

Ms. Denise Voigt Crawford, Commissioner

Texas Securities Board and President, North American Securities Administrators Association, Inc.

Mr. Glenn Theobald, Chief Counsel

Miami-Dade County Police Department, Chairman, Mayor Carlos Alvarez Mortgage Fraud Task Force

About the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC)

The bi-partisan 10-member Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was created by Congress and is charged with examining the causes of the financial meltdown. It is also examining causes of the collapse of major financial institutions that failed or would likely have failed had they not received exceptional government assistance. The Commission is comprised of Chairman Phil Angelides, Vice Chairman Bill Thomas, and Commissioners Brooksley Born, Byron Georgiou, Robert Graham, Keith Hennessey, Doug Holtz-Eakin, Heather Murren, John W. Thompson, and Peter Wallison. Findings and conclusions are to be presented in a formal report to Congress and the President by December 15, 2010.

Source: AP / Huffington Post January 11, 2010

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WHO IS Chairman Phil Angelides?
Source: Los Angeles Times

Phil Angelides on quest to find truth amid financial rubble
The former California treasurer is chairman of the 10-member congressional commission to investigate causes of the meltdown. He can only hope that the panel focuses on the empirical, not theoretical.

July 23, 2009|MICHAEL HILTZIK
The downside, if one can call it that, of being out in front on a reform issue is that occasionally you get asked to put your principles in action.

So it is with Phil Angelides, who as California's Democratic state treasurer from 1999 to 2007 pressed for disclosure and transparency for investments by CalPERS, the state pension fund. He also threatened to stop giving state business to Wall Street firms that didn't meet conflict-of-interest standards.

A week ago, Angelides, 56 -- a candidate for governor in 2006 who has lately been involved in "green" investing -- was named chairman of the 10-member congressional commission to investigate the financial meltdown. In schoolyard terms, he's now "it."


"Here's the big picture," he told me the other day. "The commission's role is to be a pursuer of the truth. If we commit ourselves to pursuing the facts and uncovering whatever is underneath whatever rock, we will do Americans a great service. And hopefully avoid this kind of thing happening again in the foreseeable future."

That may sound ambitious, but it tracks the commission's marching orders from Congress. The enabling legislation enacted in May authorizes the panel to look specifically into 22 possible causes of the meltdown that include mortgage fraud, shady accounting practices, executive compensation and short-selling of stock.

It's also instructed to examine the causes of the collapse of every major financial institution that failed from August 2007 to April 2009, as well as those that survived with taxpayers' help. That means Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros. and AIG, but arguably Citigroup or Bank of America -- any bank that took a bailout. The commission must submit its report by Dec. 15, 2010.

The panel's most important model is the Pecora inquiry, named after Ferdinand Pecora, who as chief counsel of the Senate Banking Committee in 1933-34 held Wall Street -- indeed, the nation's entire financial aristocracy -- to account for the crash of 1929. Angelides also mentions the 9/11 Commission, which issued its report in 2004.

The lesson of both is that inquiries on this scale are inevitably fraught with partisanship and ideology, and replete with sacred cows and gored oxen -- but that they can serve a lasting purpose.

Pecora's principal target was the Morgan bank. He exposed the bank -- then considered such a paragon of rectitude that the IRS never bothered to audit its tax returns -- as a hive of underhanded maneuvering. Not a single one of its 20 partners, he showed, had paid a dime of income tax in 1931 or 1932 despite earning millions from stock underwriting.