Bull by the Horns: Fighting to Save Main Street from Wall Street and Wall Street from Itself

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Bull by the Horns: Fighting to Save Main Street from Wall Street and Wall Street from Itself

3.89 of 5 stars 3.89 · rating details · 109 ratings · 39 reviews

“When Sheila Bair took over as head of the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in 2006, the agency was probably better known for the ‘FDIC’ logo on the doors of the nation’s banks than for anything it did. Now Bair is at the center of the financial crisis, speeding the takeover of failing banks and pressing the mortgage industry to ease loan terms . . . winning praise fro...more “When Sheila Bair took over as head of the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in 2006, the agency was probably better known for the ‘FDIC’ logo on the doors of the nation’s banks than for anything it did. Now Bair is at the center of the financial crisis, speeding the takeover of failing banks and pressing the mortgage industry to ease loan terms . . . winning praise from Democrats and Republicans.” —BLOOMBERG NEWS, October 3, 2008 Sheila Bair is widely acknowledged in government circles and the media as one of the first people to identify and accurately assess the subprime crisis. Appointed by George W. Bush as the chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in 2006, she witnessed the origins of the financial crisis and in 2008 became—along with Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke, and Timothy Geithner—one of the key players trying to repair the damage to our economy. Bull by the Horns is her remarkable and refreshingly honest account of that contentious time and the struggle for reform that followed and continues to this day.

A level-headed, pragmatic figure with a clear focus on serving the public good, Bair was often one of the few women in the room during heated discussions about the economy. Despite her years of experience and her determination to rein in the private banks and Wall Street, she frequently found herself at odds with Geithner. She is withering in her assessment of some of Wall Street’s finest, and her narrative of Citibank’s attempted takeover of Wachovia is a stinging indictment of how regulators and the banks worked against the public interest at times to serve their own needs.

Bair is steadfast in her belief that the American public needs to fully understand the crisis in order to bring it to an end. Critical of the bank bailouts and the Can. $29.99 lax regulation that led to the economic crash, she provides a sober analysis as well as a practical plan for how we should move forward. She helps clear away the myths and half-truths about how we ran our economic engine into the ditch and tells us how we can help get our financial and regulatory systems back on track.

As The New Yorker said, “Bair has consistently stood out for her skepticism of Wall Street and for her eagerness to confront the big banks. A Kansas Republican, she has become an unlikely hero to economic liberals, who see her as the counterweight to the more Wall Street–centric view often ascribed to Timothy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary” (July 6, 2009).(less)

ebook, 432 pages

Published September 25th 2012 by Free Press (first published September 4th 2012)

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May 02, 2013 Alvin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Solid, fascinating account of the politics and decisions made during the financial crisis from the perspective of the head of the FDIC. I thought reading this book would make me mad. It did not. It made me furious.

Sheila pulls no punches and names names, including poorly managed institutions, individuals and agencies who worked at cross purposes. All the dysfunction and infighting you're familiar with at your own company? Imagine that on a government wide scale, with an industry that has most o...more

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Jan 21, 2013 Ron Davis rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ms Bair served as head of FDIC for four years under W. and one year under O. This book has a wee bit of Ms Bair's history, and a great dollop of the in-fighting she encountered from the Fed and from Treasury. This was, we should recall, the time just before and just after the great sub-prime mortgage collapse. The issues causing the collapse received some attention, even though the focus was on financial reform, opposed tooth and nail by the now-rather-discredited (if you read the financial news...more

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Nov 28, 2012 Breakingviews rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Review by Antony Currie

There is one clear and simple message from “Bull by the Horns,” Sheila Bair’s account of her five years in charge of the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp: financial regulators still need a good kick up the backside. Bair is not one to pull her punches - she delivers her poor opinion of several financial CEOs in the first couple of pages of her tell-all, and doesn’t stop there in her critiques of America’s banking system.

Much of her ire, though, is reserved for fellow w...more Review by Antony Currie

There is one clear and simple message from “Bull by the Horns,” Sheila Bair’s account of her five years in charge of the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp: financial regulators still need a good kick up the backside. Bair is not one to pull her punches - she delivers her poor opinion of several financial CEOs in the first couple of pages of her tell-all, and doesn’t stop there in her critiques of America’s banking system.

Much of her ire, though, is reserved for fellow watchdogs, almost all of whom she regards as too chummy with their charges. Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary and former head of the New York Federal Reserve, receives much of her scorn - not least for appearing to put Citigroup’s survival above most other considerations during the height of the financial crisis that began in 2008. The most troubling part of her argument is the contention that not enough has been done since the crisis to remedy such biases.

Of course, as America’s credit-fueled housing and private equity bubbles inflated in 2006, most financial regulators looked pretty supine, including the FDIC. Bair bypasses most of this, preferring to concentrate on what she seems to feel she and her organization got right. That’s to be expected from an autobiography, especially one written by a long-time Washington insider - she was an adviser to Senator Bob Dole in the 1980s and made an unsuccessful run for a seat in the U.S. Congress in 1990.

But as the primary regulator - or from the vantage point of failing institutions the grim reaper - for thousands of banks the FDIC arguably failed to quell the rapid rise in real-estate lending or the growing tendency among some banks to seek out less secure forms of balance sheet funding. That could have avoided the regulator having to seize some 450 banks since 2008. In one telling example, she confesses that neither she nor her senior staff knew what structured investment vehicles were until they collapsed in 2007 - despite a number of banks having sizable SIV operations for almost two decades.

That, though, is a symptom of how lax supervision of America’s banks had become, regardless of which of the many - too many - regulators was ultimately responsible. Recall this was an era in which the hapless Office of Thrift Supervision, which was supposed to keep tabs on big failures like Washington Mutual and IndyMac, called the banks it was supposed to oversee “customers” and allowed some of them to backdate capital infusions so they looked healthier than they in fact were.

What distinguished Bair from other watchdogs was her quick adaptation to new realities as the crisis afflicting the financial services industry grew more apparent. According to her account, she was one of the few to try to tackle both the ever weakening mortgage-lending standards in the early days of the crisis, and to reject the groupthink mentality that convinced some of her peers, not to mention many bank CEOs, to ignore obvious problems.

That was apparent, in Bair’s telling, in the failure of two big retail banks during the crisis, Washington Mutual and Wachovia. The FDIC was convinced that both were in trouble, while their primary regulators - the OTS and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, respectively - were adamant that both were just fine. The absurdity of their position hits home most obviously when, just hours after a joint regulators call in which OCC staff repeat their absolute faith in Wachovia, the agency’s boss John Dugan calls Bair to tell her that his team was wrong: Wachovia was going under.

Worse, Bair doesn’t just accuse other regulators of allowing banks to arbitrage their regulators - that is, allowing them to choose the most pliant watchdog. She also describes how they fostered this race to the bottom themselves by proposing rules or alterations to rules that would, on the surface at least, leave their banks looking fine while penalizing those falling under other agencies’ purview.

Some of Bair’s heroics, of course, are due to the FDIC’s unique structure as the only regulator that principally relies on self-funding rather than taxpayers. It charges banks a fee for insuring their deposits, and uses those levies to finance the cost of failing banks, giving it skin in the game. Bair cites this as a source of some tension as Geithner and his predecessor at Treasury, Hank Paulson, enviously regarded the FDIC’s reserves during the crisis. Bair relates how the two of them essentially forced onto her agency the plan to guarantee bank debt and to offer financial support for Citi’s ultimately failed bid for Wachovia. Wells Fargo later trumped Citi in a deal brokered by Bair herself.

Bair’s tell-all has some faults. She adopts a rather simplistic view of securitization, appearing not to understand that players were taking risks, but simply ignoring them. Her contention that Bear Stearns did not need saving appears at odds with her more sanguine take on Lehman Brothers. Still, Bair has laid out a convincing manifesto that bank regulators need to be mindful of their priorities to protect taxpayers and the system over the needs of bankers. Above all, she raises the bar for the inevitable accounts of the historic crisis to come from Geithner, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and others.(less)

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Oct 10, 2012 Srinivas Varadarajan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sheila Bair's book is simple and direct. The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008 was an inherently complex affair and the responses to deal with it were equally complex and controversial. This book is user friendly and tries to demystify the arcane matter. Sheila's approach to regulation and rule making has been led by common sense with the interest of home-owners and main-street at heart.

Sheila has been critical of the actions of officials in the collegium of regulators. Especially at the re...more

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May 05, 2013 Meepspeeps rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I've read several books on the financial crisis and thought this book did a good job of explaining the role of the FDIC, interagency debate and conflict, and what it's like to be involved in managing a crisis among government decision makers. What I didn't like was her almost-vendetta against Timothy Geithner. She brought up his wrong decisions, lack of leadership, lack of commitment to the mission of the NY Fed and subsequently the mission of the US Treasury, and lack of integrity. I think she...more

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Oct 11, 2012 Joseph Geskey rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I enjoyed the author's account of her time in Washington during the financial crisis. As other reviewer's have mentioned, she writes clearly and directly and gives the reader an understanding of the difficulty a Republican public servant had in a supposedly pro-consumer Democratic administration! Two important conclusions (offered tongue-in-cheek) is that she is not a customer of Citibank (she absolutely eviscerates Citibank's management ) and thinks that Tim Geithner is the anti-christ of an ef...more I enjoyed the author's account of her time in Washington during the financial crisis. As other reviewer's have mentioned, she writes clearly and directly and gives the reader an understanding of the difficulty a Republican public servant had in a supposedly pro-consumer Democratic administration! Two important conclusions (offered tongue-in-cheek) is that she is not a customer of Citibank (she absolutely eviscerates Citibank's management ) and thinks that Tim Geithner is the anti-christ of an effective Treasury secretary.

It was nice to read about a Republican who doesn't think government regulation is evil and who thinks there is something wrong when taxpayers have to bailout ostensibly capitalist bankers. Her account also serves to give future public servants a wake-up call as to how power politics works--just because you have good intentions and are honest doesn't mean that people will do whatever they have to do to "win" the policy game of protecting business interests. Its like going to a meeting where you think you have a consensus but then hanging around to ensure the next meeting doesn't usurp what you thought you previously agreed to.

It was also interesting to read that despite her competence and her skirting around the fact that the rules of the game may be different for men and women in powerful positions in Washington, D.C, that she was concerned about whether people liked her and how her physical appearance was portrayed in certain publications. Despite being seemingly sensitive about these aspects she stayed stoic and purposeful in trying to do right by the American public and it was nice to read the complimentary comments she had for the people who worked under her at the FDIC.

In conclusion, an interesting read by an effective public servant who comes across as respectful to those who work under her and who is not afraid to challenge entrenched interests on behalf of the American public. I ended up with a lot of admiration for her personally at the conclusion of her book and her recommendations for preventing future financial crises are sensible and offered without a particular partisan agenda.(less)

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May 22, 2013 Johnsergeant rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiblecom, audiobook, current-affairs, economics, politics-current-affairs

I liked this audiobook a lot. I'm impressed by Sheila Bair. I'm surprised she's a Republican - she seems much more progessive than that. The only part I didn't like is towards the end where she starts talking about the deficit - she trots out the usual deficit scold nonsense.

Narrated by Joyce Bean

16 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's Summary

Sheila Bair is widely acknowledged in government circles and the media as one of the first people to identify and accurately assess the subprime crisis. Appointed by...more I liked this audiobook a lot. I'm impressed by Sheila Bair. I'm surprised she's a Republican - she seems much more progessive than that. The only part I didn't like is towards the end where she starts talking about the deficit - she trots out the usual deficit scold nonsense.

Narrated by Joyce Bean

16 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's Summary

Sheila Bair is widely acknowledged in government circles and the media as one of the first people to identify and accurately assess the subprime crisis. Appointed by George W. Bush as the chairperson of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in 2006, she witnessed the origins of the financial crisis and, in 2008, became - along with Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke, and Timothy Geithner-one of the key players invested in repairing the damage to our economy. Bull by the Horns is her remarkable and refreshingly honest account of that contentious time and the struggle for reform that followed and continues to this day.

A level-headed, pragmatic figure with a clear focus on serving the public good, Bair was often one of the few women in the room during heated discussions about the economy. Despite her years of experience and her determination to rein in the private banks and Wall Street, she frequently found herself at odds with Geithner. She is withering in her assessment of some of Wall Street's finest, and her narrative of Citibank's attempted takeover of Wachovia is a stinging indictment of how regulators and the banks worked against the public interest at times to serve their own needs.

Bair is steadfast in her belief that the American public needs to fully understand the crisis in order to bring it to an end. Critical of the bank bailouts and the Can. $29.99 lax regulation that led to the economic crash, she provides a sober analysis as well as a practical plan for how we should move forward. She helps clear away the myths and half truths about how we ran our economic engine into the ditch and tells us how we can help get our financial and regulatory systems back on track.(less)

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Nov 20, 2012 Dan Raymo rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A great, surprisingly candid recap of the financial crisis by the former head of the FDIC. It offers a good picture of how both functional and dysfunctional our government can be and why. I didn't really like the title though -- I might have gone for something that hit more accurately on the main thrusts of the book:

Suggestion 1: Why I want to Bash Tim Geithner's Head in with a Two-hole Punch - She really let's Tim have it in this book, exposing him as the corporate shill he appears to be. She r...more

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Nov 27, 2012 UChicagoLaw added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-faculty-recommendations, faculty-recommendations

"This is a detailed treatment of the causes of the financial crisis and especially the facts, and follies, of the ensuing bailouts. Baer was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Institutions from 2001 to 2003, and then during the crisis and bailout periods chaired the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, one the main federal financial regulatory agencies. She tells all and spares nobody. Read what she thinks of Geithner, Bernanke and, for example, the recently deposed head of Citi...more

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Dec 27, 2012 Jon added it · review of another edition

In Bull by the Horns Sheila Bair recounts her experience as FDIC chair from 2006 to 2011, a messy time for Washington and the banking industry. Bair comes out swinging (rightly so) at Tim Geithner and Citigroup, and her suggestions at the end of the book for fixing the system are perfect. Let me list a few of her ideas here:

- Raise capital requirements
- Maintain the ban on bailouts
- Break up the megabanks
- Require an insurable interest for credit default swaps
- Impose an assessment or tax on lar...more

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May 16, 2013 Patrdr rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: economics

What a tough minded person! This interesting book provide a specific insides perspective on the financial crisis from the vantage point of one regulator. From the outside the US looks to have a hodge-podge of regulators, all of them subject to having congress layer on roles, and rules, and constraints.

The FDIC, mainly charged with insuring deposits of US banks, looks like the natural home for the most down to earth of regulators. They will want to ensure that banks are safe and sound and that th...more

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Oct 02, 2012 Dan Petegorsky rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Bair’s is the latest in a series of insider accounts by former Hill and Federal agency staff of the financial meltdown and its aftermath, and it stands head and shoulders above the rest. It’s something of a policy wonk’s jeremiad, leveling sustained and withering critiques of those public officials (especially Tim Geithner and the OCC’s John Dugan and John Walsh) who saw their job as protecting Wall Street more than Main Street. Where Neil Barofsky’s book is more of a flash grilling, Bair gives...more

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Jan 25, 2013 Julian Haigh rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

While anyone could pick this up and with a bit of concentration understand what was going on, effort will likely be required to catalog both bureaucratic acronym (FDIC, OCC, TARP, FHFA...)and people and companies. Emphasizing the decision-making process of the 2008 bank bail-out, it was an eye opening account (for me) and I have developed a strong dislike for Tim Geitner.

Note to Sheila Bair. First: thank you for writing the book, I really enjoyed it; and second: please include an list of major a...more

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Oct 28, 2012 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I've read probably a dozen books on the Financial Meltdown of 2008 and this book really helped fill in the missing pieces. As a Republican, Sheila Bair comes off as smart, level headed and focused on the little guy - some thing I can say most GOP folks do not posses. Anyway she balances the need for Regulations and open markets to punish bad business behavior, however at every turn Geitner and many in Congress undermined her quest for stiffer rules. The game is rigged for the wealthy bankers and...more

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Dec 01, 2012 Darius rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

The first half of this book provides an interesting look at how things played out during the "great recession", from the viewpoint of one player. It's interesting and useful to see some of the dynamics behind the way government works. The second half of the book was less interesting, and I gave up at the 80% mark. I did not read Bair's prescriptions for what long-term changes the country ought to adopt, so I cannot comment on that...but, I'm pretty sure it would be a conservative but statist app...more

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Mar 12, 2013 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: current-affairs

very interesting and personal history, with good, simple explanations of complex financial products and policies, and how they relate to "main street". It's long and detailed, but she writes clearly and with some humor. She takes good positions, and fights for them; she may not always be right, but she's usually arguing for the right things. Sheila Bair for [something]. Probably not president, but maybe chairman of the Fed.

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May 02, 2013 Christian rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: current-events-issues, economics-finance, politics

This is a decent book, for those who are interested in politics and current events. The author writes well, nicely explaining her experiences as head of FDIC. She was able to state opinions without being too strident or particularly partisan. The exception to this is her obvious dislike of Tim Geithner, the Treasury Secretary.

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Nov 19, 2012 Yalman Onaran rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a great behind-the-scenes look at how the government bailed banks out during the crisis and softened the rules as they were being rewritten to prevent the next crisis. It's very complementary to my book, Zombie Banks, and supports some of the arguments and events mentioned in it.

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Sep 26, 2012 Juliana marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Really interested in reading this, but what a horrible cover! Who was responsible for that? When I saw the little preview icon of it, I honestly thought I must be mistaken and I hadn't found the correct book, because it looked like the cover of a steampunk novel.

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Feb 03, 2013 William Myers rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sheila Bair was the head of FDIC during the financial crisis, and observes as big banks capture the bailout and homeonwers take the begging bowl. Ms Bair roots for consumers, but at each step is out-manuveured by Treasury and the Fed. Even OTS wins more!

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Oct 28, 2012 Beth rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I highly recommend this book! One - Ms. Bair provides great insight into her perspective on the Financial Crisis of 2008. She is amazingly frank and open with her commentary. Secondly, it provides a good luck at the difficulties women in powerful positions, be it Government or Business, experience. These difficulties come from juggling family responsibilities and dealing with what is still "a man's world." Thanks for being so open with us, Ms. Bair.

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Nov 02, 2012 Chet rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Economic nerds

I found this book to be extremely comprehensive, it filled out the form of the larger range of players who contributed to the 2008 banking crisis. Offered is further data as to just how comprehensive the control is of those who support unrestricted banking for those larger entities.
The consumer beware is hardly the point it's so what if the consumer is aware! That is the state as described by Sheila Bair who was in a key position to see this bais first hand.
I recommend this book for anyone who w...more

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Nov 23, 2012 Cj Sime rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Great book for people like me who have limited knowledge of banking and the politics that surround it, but still, there might be a reason why I never learned about banking and that could be because it doesn't interest me-- in other words I thought it was boring.

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Jan 20, 2013 Kelly rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Very readable and interesting. She has some axes to grind, for sure, but I enjoyed having a window into how the process of the crisis, regulation, and bailouts worked at that level.

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Dec 29, 2012 Adam Yale rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Interesting account of financial crisis through the eyes of controversial FDIC chairwoman Sheila bair. She was right in most circumstances but is a little much to handle.

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Apr 07, 2013 Jeff Seymour rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Excellent read. The Washington turf wars may annoy. But this too can be helpful --> cause voters to ask hard questions of politicians.

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Sep 29, 2012 bryan marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Recommended by Nassim Taleb: http://www.amazon.com/review/RELTFUW3...

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Jan 04, 2013 Ana rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Finally finished reading it. It was a very slow read. Although well written and easy to understand it, at times, felt that it was too much name dropping and whining. I actually really enjoyed the end of the book which demonstrates the author's ability to write to the masses (not only for those people who are immersed in the financial industry and understand the concepts, but also for the lay person who may not know all the intricacies of how we arrived at the place we are today). I would give it...more

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Apr 05, 2013 Alex rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Detailed, albeit too long and repetitive at times, account of an insider's view of the financial crisis. Enjoyable perhaps only for those with an already acquired interest in the matter.

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Feb 06, 2013 Kevin St.Clair rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sheila don't like Tim Geitner, that's clear....Not bad, but I enjoyed Too Big To Fail and Bailout more.

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