The OCC’s decision to protect the banks and their burgeoning sub-prime mortgage portfolios from scrutiny was a major cause – yes cause – of the 2008 meltdown and Great Recession that followed.
The Corporate Observer has not named a person of the week award for several months so this is kind of special… Drum roll please. New York Times columnist Joe Nocera is our Person of the Week. He joins an illustrious crew including early Madoff reporter Harry Markopolos, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, pharmaceutical whistleblower Cheryl Eckard, and numerous others. Mr. Nocera is the new op ed columnist at the Times, ostensibly replacing the venerable Frank Rich. He comes to the column from the business pages where he distilled complicated stories into readable and at times compelling theater.
Mr. Nocera snags the award this week because his column on the continued failure of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to objectively regulate the banking industry exposes new levels of absurdity. Yes absurdity. Save the rating agencies (and of course good old greed on Wall Street), the OCC’s decision to protect the banks and their burgeoning sub-prime mortgage portfolios from scrutiny was a major cause – yes cause – of the 2008 meltdown and Great Recession that followed.
Based on his street smarts and years of experience, Mr. Nocera does not mince words in his appraisal of the OCC. The following quote alone earns him the Person of the Week award:
“Calling the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency a “regulator” is almost laughable. The Environmental Protection Agency is a regulator. The O.C.C. is a coddler, a protector, an outright enabler of the institutions it oversees.”
Go Joe. He continues to call out the OCC for brandishing legal preemption ("federal law trumps state law") like King Arthur’s Excalibur, in an effort to defeat hard-working, earnest state attorney generals from designing reforms and bringing fairness to foreclosures. He reminds his Times readers that the OCC remains steadfast in its defense of “sloppy, callous and often illegal practices” of an unapologetic banking industry.
The CO can’t get enough of his hard-hitting, take-no-prisoners approach. Charge on Joe. Keep using that prestigious column to challenge conventional wisdom.
For your efforts to date, we name you our Person of the Week.