Diane Swonk: The FCIC report
JEREMY HOBSON: Now let’s get to today’s report from the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.
Diane Swonk is chief economist at Mesirow Financial. She’s with us live now from Chicago. Good morning, Diane.
DIANE SWONK: Good morning.
HOBSON: What’s the most interesting thing to you about this report?
SWONK: Well, of course there is blame for everyone from Wall Street to Washington. Lots of witch hunts out there. But the most interesting thing is what’s not in the report, and that’s the descent. And that is that this crisis was not just U.S. in nature. It doesn’t have just Wall Street and Washington to blame. It was global in scope. It happened everywhere. And that is really important because if we don’t take that into context, we’ll be coming up with the wrong answers as we try to enforce the regulations that we’re now trying to implement as the result financial crisis.
HOBSON: The descents you’re talking about the Republicans on the Commission who did not endorse what the Democrats came out with in this report. Diane, while we’re talking politics here, I mean financial reform already passed through Congress. It was signed by the president, so what’s the point of this report at this point?
SWONK: What’s important is that the financial reforms left a lot of leeway for how regulators are going to actually enforce the regulations. How they’re going to go about regulating the financial services industry and many industries, even beyond financial services. So to the extent that they have a lot of leeway, this report could influence and could have them over regulating in areas where some people want to place too much political blame and missing areas where we still need to look closer at.
HOBSON: Diane Swonk, Chief Economist at Mesirow Financial, thanks so much.
SWONK: Thank you.
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