Women leading the charge in the financial mess
I wanted to share this piece from my friend Joe Costello, whose listserv Archein is an invaluable resource and sure to stir the blood. There’s been a lot of research on the role of women as organizational whistleblowers. Women, outside of the majority power structure, have felt more comfortable stepping outside groupthink and speaking up. Make of this what you will. Ironically, Stanford Law Professor Deborah Rhode said in 2002, during the Enron mess (!): “”If you’re not one of the good old boys to begin with….it makes it easier when you see something flat- out wrong to raise your voice.” So here is Joe’s piece on the outstanding role of several women in calling the financial crisis before it happened.
In a recent piece, I talked about women leading the charge on the financial mess. I was asked in an email to, “Write a piece and send it around or something.” Ya’ll didn’t know I take requests did you? So, in my best Wayne Newton, and I could pull this off if I shaved my goatee and took off the top 3/4 of my mustache — “This one’s for the ladies: ”
1) First, I’ll start with Yves Smith, who I came across end of last summer. A bio of her states she has 25 years in financial services, worked for, amongst others, Goldman, McKinsey, and Sumitomo, and a graduate of Harvard and Harvard Business School. Her blog is Naked Capitalism. She has shown great knowledge and greater courage, from my experience, these two traits are too rare together. Her writing is exceptional and if you want a good overview of the financial mess and what’s gone on over the past year and half, I couldn’t more highly recommend, paging through her blog’s archive. The president should replace Geithner with her. Time we had our first woman Treasury Secretary.
2) Next, Elizabeth Warren. Either mistakenly, which I believe is the case, or purposefully, in which case I’d have to reevaluate my opinion of Harry Reid, Warren was appointed by Reid to head the Congressional Oversight Panel for all the money being handed to the banks. Warren is Professor of Law at Harvard and wrote the excellent book The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke. So, she documented the great underbelly of Wall Street’s debt bubble, that is, its destruction of a big chunk of working America. I don’t know if when Reid appointed her, he thought he was getting some doddering academic, but instead he got a strong and energetic public advocate. There’s been a pretty hard effort to discredit Ms Warren, and Yves Smith takes a look at the hatchet job done by NPR here. Here’s a good interview with Bill Mahr. I’ve been nothing but impressed when I’ve heard her talk and strongly second the motion by Greider to give her subpoena powers.
3) In October 2007, working for Oppenheimer, Merdith Whitney wrote a report calling Citi the pile [of] junk it is. Amazingly, she was pretty much the only one in the whole industry to do so. Since then, Whitney has been straight at the big banks, holding nothing back on what bad shape they’re in. She’s the Anti-Geithner. In the middle of latest pop in the stock market, which has gotten the banks $50 billion in new capital over the past couple months, Whitney appeared here on CNBC,(excellent) and called the banks’ profits “manufactured” by the government, and stated things would begin heading south again. She’s an eagle above the weasels scurrying below on Wall Street.
4) Gretchen Morgenson writes for the NYT business section. In the last year and half, she has written far and away some of the best coverage of the financial crisis in the mainstream media. Most importantly, she put Mr. Blankfein at the meeting with Mr. Paulson and Mr. Bernanke when the bailout of AIG was decided to the advantage of Goldman for at least 14 billion. By the way, Goldman hasn’t returned that 14 billion! Again, if you want to read some good things on the last year and half, scroll through her articles in the Times’ archive. The Nation just did an ok piece on her. Unfortunately, it suffers from the author’s “objective journalism” disease.
5) Finally, I’d throw in Sheila Bair, who was appointed head of the FDIC by none other than George W. Bush. Ms Bair has frequently tangled with the boys in the government, taking on Paulson, Bernanke, Geithner, and Summers. She’s stated repeatedly the banking crisis is not over, tried to slow the foreclosure tsunami, and most recently stated again Citi is a pile of shit and needs to be placed into receivership.
These women are inspiring! Citizens all, helping breathe life into this old republic.
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About Me
Morra Aarons-Mele utilizes social media strategies to help employers, employees and communities connect. She also consults with leading organizations on how women can use the internet for professional and personal development. In her spare time, Morra enjoys blogging about women and politics. Read her full bio >>
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