Sheila Bair

Sheila Bair
Chairperson of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
In office June 26, 2006 – July 8, 2011
President	George W. Bush Barack Obama
Preceded by	Martin Gruenberg (Acting)
Succeeded by	Martin Gruenberg
Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Markets
In office 2001–2002
President	George W. Bush
Preceded by	Richard Carnell
Succeeded by	Wayne Abernathy
Chairperson of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Acting
In office August 21, 1993 – December 21, 1993
President	Bill Clinton
Preceded by	William Albrecht (Acting)
Succeeded by	Barbara Holum (Acting)
Personal details
Born	(1954-04-03) April 3, 1954 Wichita, Kansas, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Scott Cooper
Children	Preston Colleen
Alma mater	University of Kansas, Lawrence
Religion	Lutheranism

Sheila Colleen Bair^[1] (born April 3, 1954)^[2] served as the 19th Chairperson of the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).^[3] She was appointed to the post for a five-year term on June 26, 2006 by George W. Bush. Bair served as a member of the FDIC Board of Directors through July 8, 2011.^[4]

Early life

Bair is a native of Independence, Kansas. Her father, Albert, was a surgeon. Her mother, Clara, was a nurse and housewife. She received her bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of Kansas in 1975,^[5] and worked as a bank teller for a brief period, before receiving a J.D. from the University of Kansas School of Law in 1978. In 1981, she was recruited by Senator Bob Dole, a Republican from her state, to serve as counsel on his staff in Washington.

Career

Prior to her appointment at the FDIC, Bair was the Dean's Professor of Financial Regulatory Policy for the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a post she had held since 2002. She also served as Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions at the U.S. Department of the Treasury (2001 to 2002), Senior Vice President for Government Relations of the New York Stock Exchange (1995 to 2000), a Commissioner and Acting Chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (1991 to 1995), and Research Director, Deputy Counsel and Counsel to Kansas Republican Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (1981 to 1988). While an academic, Bair also served on the FDIC's Advisory Committee on Banking Policy. Bair also pursued a seat in the U.S. Congress (she lost the 1990 Republican nomination in the 5th Kansas district by 760 votes to Dick Nichols).^[6] Bair began her career in the General Counsel's office of the former U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.^[7]

Ms. Bair left the FDIC on July 8, 2011, when her five-year term expired.^[8][9] She became a senior advisor to The Pew Charitable Trusts in August 2011.^[10] She is chair of the Systemic Risk Council, a volunteer effort formed by the CFA Institute and the Pew Charitable Trusts to monitor and comment on regulation.^[11]

2008 financial crisis

Bair assumed a prominent role in the government’s response to the crisis, including bolstering public confidence and system stability that resulted in no runs on bank deposits. The FDIC did not turn to taxpayer borrowing to manage its losses and liquidity needs, instead funding them through its traditional means of assessing banks for the cost of insuring their deposits. The FDIC’s resolution practice of selling failing banks to healthier institutions, while providing credit support of future losses from failed banks’ troubled loans, saved the FDIC’s Deposit Insurance Fund $40 billion over losses it would have incurred if the FDIC had liquidated those banks.^{[citation needed]}

During the congressional effort to reform the financial regulatory system, Bair successfully pushed to establish tools to end the doctrine of “too big to fail” by extending the FDIC’s resolution process to large, systemically-important financial institutions. The FDIC was also given joint authority to order the restructuring of an entity that cannot demonstrate, through a continually-monitored “living will,” that it can be unwound.^{[citation needed]}

Bair is active on the international front, and pressed the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision to adopt strong capital and leverage standards.^[12]

In a fictional TV movie about the crises, Patricia Randell played Bair in the 2011 HBO movie Too Big to Fail, based on the popular book of the same name by New York Times journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin.

Opinion

In 2009, Bair was named one of Time magazine’s “Time 100” most influential people. In 2008, Bair topped The Wall Street Journal’s annual 50 “Women to Watch List.” In 2008 and 2009, Forbes ranked her as the second most powerful woman in the world behind German chancellor Angela Merkel. Forbes described her FDIC office as "the last stop for capital-starved banks (and their insured customers) before going under."^[13]

Criticism

Bair has received criticism for her outspoken style and what some saw as her single-minded defense of the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund in the heat of the response to the financial meltdown in 2008. The FDIC was sued by Judicial Watch twice seeking information regarding the FDIC decision jointly with the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department to “bailout” Citi. The litigants say the FDIC was refusing to provide any information on the reasons for its support of the bailouts of certain banks stemming from the Financial Crisis of 2008, and continues to do so. Judge Emmett G. Sullivan of the US District Court (DC) said the case was not moot because the litigants continued to contest whether the FDIC reasonably interpreted the scope of his request. The FDIC says the court specifically gave the FDIC the option to submit additional evidence demonstrating that its original search was complete. The FDIC says it has done so, and the issue of the scope of the search is now before the Court.^[14][15]

In addition to the legal proceedings, Bair has made the following remark, which spoke to the FDIC’s lack of statutory authority before the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010. In a response to the Inspector General for the TARP program, Bair remarked, "We were told by the New York Fed that problems would occur in the global markets if Citi were to fail. We didn't have our own information to verify this statement, so I didn't want to dispute that with them." In 2008, the FDIC did not have the legal authority to put large holding companies into its bank receivership process and little authority to access information outside of the insured institutions. Since these were holding companies, and not banks, the FDIC had to rely on information from other regulators. That is no longer the case. In 2010, the Dodd-Frank Act was enacted, expressly prohibiting bank bailouts by extending the FDIC’s resolution authority to close the largest financial firms and make their shareholders and creditors bear the losses without creating a systemic disruption. Dodd-Frank also gave the FDIC new authority to directly access information from large bank holding companies which are not in sound condition.^[15][16]

Awards

Bair has received many awards, including the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award and Hubert H. Humphrey Civil Rights Award.^[17]

In 2009, Bair was presented the Consumer Federation of America's Philip Hart Public Service Award.^[18]

On March 29, 2012 Bair was honored by the Romney Institute of Public Management (BYU Marriott School of Management) as the Administrator of the Year.^[19][20]

Publications

• Bair, Sheila (2012). Bull by the horns : fighting to save Main Street from Wall Street and Wall Street from itself. New York: Free Press. ISBN 9781451672480. LCCN 2012-39342. 
• Bair, Sheila; illustrated by Judy Stead (2008). Isabel's car wa$h. Morton Grove, Illinois: Albert Whitman & Co. ISBN 9780807536520. LCCN 2007-30956.  Cite uses deprecated parameters (help)
• Bair, Sheila; illustrated by Barry Gott (2006). Rock, Brock, and the savings shock. Morton Grove, Illinois: Albert Whitman & Co. ISBN 9780807570944. LCCN 2005-26974.  Cite uses deprecated parameters (help)

References

External links

• Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
  • Board of Directors
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Sheila Bair at the Internet Movie Database
• Works by or about Sheila Bair in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Sheila Bair collected news and commentary at Bloomberg News
• Sheila Bair collected news and commentary at Forbes
• Sheila Bair collected news and commentary at The Wall Street Journal
• Sheila Bair collected news and commentary at The New York Times
  • Sheila Bair’s Bank Shot, Joe Nocera, The New York Times, July 9, 2011
• The Contrarian, Ryan Lizza, The New Yorker, July 6, 2009