Kyle Hayes made the best statement of the day when he spoke about banks that are too big to fail. His answer was simply that capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without hell. Hayes was joined by Peter Solomon and another during the afternoon session of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.
The morning session was filled with testimony by Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein. Dimon seemed to stay within the expected testimony stating that things could have been done differently and should have been done differently. Following his statement from last week that he was tired of the banks being blamed for everything that went wrong, Dimon today seemed to be a bit more contrite.
On the other hand, Blankfein, Chairman and DEO of Goldman Sachs, came across as a bit of an arrogant ass. He made a feeble attempt to compare the financial crisis to parts of the country being hit by four consecutive hurricanes. He was reminded by one of the commissioners that hurricane devastation was God-made and the financial crisis was man made. Perhaps, Blankfein has a bit of difficulty understanding the difference.
Blankfein went on the compare the standards of the times before the crisis to those in effect during the crisis. Peter Solomon during round two of the commission questioning complained that the standards had not changed, but rather the environment.
All in all the first day of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was met with a touch of arrogance by some of the bankers. The afternoon panel took a different approach complaining that the big banks — those too big to fail — should be more closely regulated and should act more conservatively.
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