Banking Law

While FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair may give many of us in the private sector a bad case of shingles, within the FDIC she's hotter than a photo of a passionate lip-lock between Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan. At least, that's what Emily Flitter at the American Banker's BankThink blog reports.

Hell no, don???t let Sheila go!

That???s the chant of Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. employees hoping to keep Chairman Sheila Bair in place in a new administration.

A Web site, thepetitionsite.com, now boasts a notice from agency employees asking President-elect Barack Obama to keep Ms. Bair on in her current post. ???Chairman Bair is promoting a workplace environment where we are treated with respect and empowered to be successful in our jobs,??? the petition reads. ???Chairman Bair exhibits the FDIC's corporate values of fairness, teamwork, integrity, competence, effectiveness, financial responsibility, open and honest communication, empowerment, and effective leadership. For all the above reasons, we support Chairman Bair and ask that you please retain her as our leader.???

Ms. Bair's playing down the hoopla and trying to act cool in the face of all the fan worship, however difficult that might be, given the devotion of her loyal minions.

Ms. Bair???s popularity at the FDIC is rarely matched. Morale at the agency has been low for years???ever since L. William Seidman, a former chairman, left in 1991. Ms. Bair???s graceful dominance of the regulatory response to the credit crisis gave the institution a much-needed lift.

The last time I experienced "graceful dominance," it cost me $150 an hour and still left scars. But I digress.

Ms. Flitter's observations about Ms. Bair's in-agency popularity are mirrored by some of the e-mails I've received from FDIC employees since I issued a fatwa against Ms. Bair a couple of years ago. Her employees stick up for her. They claim that she's discontinued dysfunctional personnel policies that sapped morale, and that she's turned the agency around in that respect. They claim that she's whip-smart, and that her public policy positions are well thought out. They claim that while her consumer-advocacy bias is not hidden, it comes from a caring personality, not from some ideological Kool-Aid consumption. They claim that I'm being grossly unfair to her. Finally, they claim that I wear my posterior as a hat, which is a difficult allegation to refute.

Of course, such thoughtful opposition to my viewpoint forced to make crank calls to the FDIC, along the lines of  "Is your refrigerator running?" and "Do you have Sir Walter Raleigh in a can?" Boy, those lines crack me up today as much as they did 48 years after I first started using them. They work better, though, when you're phoning a personal residence or a drug store, rather than a government agency that simply hangs up without answering the question. Actually, I no longer receive e-mail from the FDIC, but I assume the flaming bags of dog excrement left on my doorstep, and the jack-o-lantern with the knife through it and the note "Die, Infidel!" scrawled across the face that was deposited on my lawn this past Halloween, were from the same folks. With so many enemies enraged by my snark, it's hard to sort them all out.

Ms. Flitter makes some educated guesses about where Ms. Obama Bair might end up in the new administration. I think her suggestion that it's "time to share the love" with HUD is spot on. Of course, after the disastrous rein of Alphonso ("Curly") Jackson, a bowl of tepid oatmeal or a withered kumquat might be greeted with equal exaltation at HUD. Nevertheless, when it comes to promoting a housing agenda, there's no place like HUD. Just think what mischief her best buddy Barney Frank could wreak on American housing for the next four or more years with a consumer advocate like Ms. Bair over there!

I feel a Chris Matthews-like thrill going up my leg at the mere prospect.