Where Is the Leadership?
Nearly a year after turmoil hit the global financial markets, and three months since the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department stepped in to prevent the failure of Bear Stearns, is there any comprehensive effort by the financial services industry to explain what went wrong and what needs to be done to prevent a recurrence?
"The importance of the finance sector to the global economy has swollen along with the bonuses it awards itself," Bloomberg columnist Mark Gilbert wrote recently. "Standards of behavior, however, have failed to mature at anything like the same pace. And so far nobody in banking has apologized for the chaos caused by lax lending standards and monumental hubris." He added, "The backlash is gathering force. Every day brings fresh threats of increased oversight and tighter rules from blindsided regulators and angry lawmakers."
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