John Allison, Chairman of BB&T on crisis Jan 09

[riadi]

John Allison, Chairman of BB&T talking about the financial crisis. Video recorded 1/29/09 – very good, make sure to see the slides as well (link below video).

Would love to hear comments, both pro and con.

Cheers,

Rodrigo

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reg_ls_financial_crisis

[cjppjc]

John Allison, Chairman of BB&T talking about the financial crisis. Video recorded 1/29/09 – very good, make sure to see the slides as well (link below video).

Would love to hear comments, both pro and con.

Cheers,

Rodrigo

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reg_ls_financial_crisis


Not wild about his points on FDIC insurance. Like people would shop around for safer banks all the time. His points on Freddie & Fannie are correct. But no where did he blame bankers and speculators. He also claimed he say all this comming. I wonder if that is true?

[riadi]

Not wild about his points on FDIC insurance. Like people would shop around for safer banks all the time. His points on Freddie & Fannie are correct. But no where did he blame bankers and speculators. He also claimed he say all this comming. I wonder if that is true?

My guess is people would indeed shop for safer banks if FDIC insurance wasn't available, just as they do with any other type of product or service. Further, why would one blame bankers and speculators? I believe abuse certainly happened, but it wasn't limited to banks and IMO it wasn't a primary (nor secondary I would venture) cause of the current crisis.... further, I don't see speculators in such a negative light - they help move the system to its "end state"... thoughts?

[WDCRob]

Depends on what you mean by 'banks.'

There were certainly a large number of folks in the financial world who made loans they knew would never be repaid (or, possibly, that didn't care whether or not they'd be repaid) and then sold those loans to third parties - skimming the profit and shunting the risk off onto someone else at great cost to the world's economy.

So I'm on board with blaming the bankers. And the people who gutted regulation to the point where this sort of mass fraud and theft was possible.

[cjppjc]

Depends on what you mean by 'banks.'

There were certainly a large number of folks in the financial world who made loans they knew would never be repaid (or, possibly, that didn't care whether or not they'd be repaid) and then sold those loans to third parties - skimming the profit and shunting the risk off onto someone else at great cost to the world's economy.

So I'm on board with blaming the bankers. And the people who gutted regulation to the point where this sort of mass fraud and theft was possible.

Absolutely. Also Raidi, I don't think the banking crisis can be blamed on FDIC insurance. You have a better chance to get rid of the Fed then FDIC insurance.