Sheila Bair A Witch In Wall Street

Sheila Bair A Witch In Wall Street © http://www.shanagrant.com

Sheila Colleen Bair (born April 3, 1954) is the Chairman of the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). She was appointed to the post for a five-year term on June 26, 2006 by George W. Bush. Bair will also serve as a member of the FDIC Board of Directors through July 2013.
Bair has played a key role in the management of the 2008 financial crisis. As reported in the Los Angeles Times, Bair was one of the first government officials to recognize the problem of subprime loans. Bair assumed a prominent role in the Bush administration's response to the crisis, including successfully pressing for a provision in the federal government's financial rescue bill that temporarily raised the cap on FDIC insured deposits to US$250,000 per account (although this was not made retroactive to include depositors of IndyMac Bank which had failed just 90 days beforehand).

On July 14, 2008, Bair temporarily halted all of the foreclosures on bank-owned loans in the portfolio of IndyMac Bank. Her plan to modify mortgages had mixed results.

Chairman Bair also oversaw the attempted acquisition of Wachovia by Citigroup, which was later nullified by the acquisition of Wachovia by Wells Fargo and the actual acquisition of Washington Mutual, the largest failed bank in history, by JP Morgan Chase. Her involvement in the Citibank-Wachovia deal has been criticized because it would have used taxpayer money to limit losses on Wachovia's loan portfolio. The Wells Fargo-Wachovia deal "called for purchase of the entire company and required no government assistance."

Bair publicly criticized the Bush Administration's $700 billion bailout package, saying it will not do enough to help Americans facing foreclosures.

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