Monday, August 3, 2009

Letter to Sen. Corker about S.1540 bill

Honorable Senator Corker,
I had the opportunity to review your bill that is meant to provide FDIC the power to unwind bank holding companies. On first look this is a great idea, provided FDIC is a fair organization that always obeys the law without prejudice.
However, as the case of Washington Mutual Bank's take over and later sale to JPM would demonstrate, FDIC has not always been transparent in its actions. WMB was placed on recievership while it was in a well capitalized state(1). Through a non transparent bidding process, FDIC sold it to JP morgan Chase for a mere 1.9 billion. All of its bondholders and shareholders including myself were left devastated.
Washington Mutual had $307B in assets, $188B in deposits, 2239 branches, 4,932 owned and branded ATMs, and 43,198 employees at the time of seizure. There was ample excess cash available in another subsidiary (WMBfsb -12 billion) which was also taken over. Washington Mutual Inc. (the holding company) is in chapter 11 and an extensive discovery process has been authorized by the court into the dealing behind the bank's seizure.
Small banks have lots to fear if your bill becomes the law. For the advantage of larger predators they may be taken over. Media frenzy is easy to create pushing smaller banks to the brim where FDIC can take them over and sell it to whom they please. This bill will permit lager banks to become even larger which actually worsens the 'moral hazard'.
Sheila Bair has felt the pressure under WMI's court action and is clearly using you to push forth this bill that gives her absolute power. She is clearly misleading you about this moral hazard cliche. She specifically wants to reverse Ch 11 actions, which should clearly expose her agenda to you. The saying 'power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely' is very apt in this case.
I respectfully request you to reconsider this bill, or atleast review the court case between WMI and JPMC/FDIC(2)

(1)http://files.ots.treas.gov/730021.pdf page 2 last para(2)