The Good, The Bad, And The Clueless
Bank Lawyer’s Blog:
Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen a demonstration of venality and/or ignorance at the top of the food chain in our nation’s capital and a demonstration of impressive competence among the rank and file. We’ll take them in reverse order.
The Wall Street Journal’s Damian Paletta had a front page article the week before last on the FDIC’s seizure of the insolvent First Integrity Bank in small town Staples, Minnesota. It’s an excellent "fly-on-the-wall" account of how some old and, I assume, new hands at the FDIC stage the logistical maneuver of taking down a broke bank with minimal muss and fuss. It demonstrates how much nuts-and-bolts competence exists among the career types who toil away day after day in these agencies below the radar screen of the main stream media. Political appointees come and go, often with minimal lasting effect. It’s the grunts in the trenches that keep the wheel turning.
On the flip side of competence we have the shining examples of the Chairmen of the Senate Banking Committee and Budget Committee. Both men received favored loan terms from their favorite mortgage banking whipping boy, yet both tried the Sergeant Schultz defense when called out on it.
Senator Kent Conrad,
Democrat of North Dakota, said Saturday that he would donate $10,500 to
charity and refinance a property loan after suggestions that he and
other prominent Washington figures received preferential treatment from
Countrywide Financial Corporation.
Though Mr. Conrad,
chairman of the Budget Committee, said he was not aware of any
favoritism shown by the lender that has come under scrutiny in the
mortgage crisis, he said a review of e-mail traffic suggested that the
loan fee for a beach house may have been reduced because of his status,
while a second loan called for an exception…