Bair knew banking when

bairsheilaIn a New Yorker profile titled “The Contrarian,” Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chairwoman Sheila Bair is variously referred to as a “Republican regulator liberals love” and “the skunk at the picnic.” A Bush appointee, Bair was among the few voices warning about the economic threat posed by subprime mortgages. The University of Kansas graduate, former aide to Bob Dole and onetime Kansas congressional candidate discusses her roots in Independence (“It’s an area where people make it, but you’ve got to work at it,” she said) and recalls working as a teller in a small-town bank in the simpler ’70s. “Everybody had a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage back then,” she said. “It was a ritual to come in and make your mortgage payment personally. There was a kind of pride in living up to your obligations, and, on the lender side, in making loans that people could understand and afford.”

5 Comments

  1. Regular
    Posted July 1, 2009 at 8:44 am | Permalink

    Perhaps Ms. Bair can call up CitiBank, a subsidiary of CitiGroup and have them quit sending me credit card applications twice a week?

  2. bth
    Posted July 1, 2009 at 9:54 am | Permalink

    When banking was banking …

    And the banks that stuck with such responsible practices are doing fine today. It is the “ultra-modern” banks that went under.

  3. Regular
    Posted July 1, 2009 at 9:55 am | Permalink

    Hi Ben! :)

    I’m still ticked off not getting my ‘free toaster’ back in the 70s from that one bank. :)

  4. Phantom
    Posted July 1, 2009 at 10:28 am | Permalink

    Ahhh the Good ol’ days before Grahm and the repubs had their way.

  5. Jed
    Posted July 1, 2009 at 11:02 am | Permalink

    Yeah, I remember my folks going in to make their $40mo. mortgage payment. Problem now is that most people couldn’t carry enough cash to make a house payment.