In a long, grey article about deregulation of the thrifts, the Washington Post shoves a fist through the Bush administration's scrim. It's simply not true that "nobody knew this was coming" and, worse, "this is the Obama recession." The responsibility for overseeing the banks "shrank dramatically," and now verifiably, in deliberate moves by the Bush administration.
This particular report centers on the Office of Thrift Supervision, a Treasury agency run, during much of the Bush administration, by one John Gilleran. It's the old story. "We don't need to supervise them; they can supervise themselves."
"He also reduced consumer protections. The other agencies that regulate banks review corporate health and compliance with consumer laws separately, which consumer advocates say helps ensure that each gets proper scrutiny from specialists. Gilleran merged the consumer exam into the financial exam.
"Gilleran did not respond to multiple requests to be interviewed for this article. But at the time he headed the agency, he defended the consolidation of the exams, saying thrifts would be required to conduct 'self-evaluations of their compliance with consumer laws.'"
There will be further long, grey (and way overdue) revelations of this kind, the kinds of revelations we were hungry for in the thick of the Bush years. By now most of us, tired to death of Bush/Cheney sewage, have trouble with looking at the details. The stupidity and venality we knew were there are surfacing -- and all one can feel is disgust. Something must be done to make sure this never happens again? Sure, sure. But there are always people out there who are greedy, people who are so impatient in their greed that we're sure to see it surface again one of these days, maybe sooner than later. After all, at least one player in this mess came straight out of the Keating mess when we said, "Never again."
