Come on Bernanke! Is it still irony when it’s so absurd you never considered it? Alanis Morissette at least had subtle irony. I don’t expect Canada to hire George W. Bush as a foreign policy advisor. I don’t expect Google to hire Ted Stevens as a technology advisor. I don’t expect Barack Obama to hire the recently fired Fannie Mae CEO as an economic advisor (hmmm bad example).
It’s good to know the Federal Reserve is able to expand during these recessionary times, but is it fair to hire someone who helped create the recession?
Here’s the skinny:
“Michael Alix was head of risk management for Bear Stearns for two years until the institution imploded this spring, a victim of its (risky) subprime-mortgage related investments.”
ABC News picked up on the story however Wall St. as a whole ignored this juicy gossip. The announcement was quiet as naturally the Fed probably didn’t want to draw attention to this matter. Michael Alix has been hired to be a senior advisor to the group in charge of bank supervision. Yes the guy in charge of MANAGING RISK at Bear Sterns is now advising the people in charge of inspecting the banks for soundness.
We’re only left to question the logic behind such a move. Let’s study his Linked In profile. Well first of all he went to a prestigious undergraduate school: Duke University. This was followed by attending graduate school at the Wharton School of The University of Pennsylvania. In case you were not aware, the Wharton School is widely considered the top business school in the world. It doesn’t make you smart, but it guarantees you a great career. Alix has had distinguished careers at TWO famous financial services firms. The first was Merrill Lynch (dead) and of course we all know about Bear Stearns (dead).
Nevermind the fact that this guy has no experience working in government and has already gotten a position as Sr. Advisor, this guy has no commercial banking experience. What that means is you are just as qualified as this guy to help inspect banks. Of course the big difference is this guy lost his well-paying job and the Wharton School doesn’t want their name tarnished by a fool so they’ve arranged to get his reputation back (speculation).
This is an absolute outrage. It is unacceptable for the government to hire people intimately involved with the events that created the credit crunch to help sort out the mess. The FBI and SEC have committed to identifying criminal acts involved with the economic downturn, meanwhile the NY Fed is busy hiring people that would make my top 10 list of people to investigate. Alix was directly in charge of managing the risk at Bear Stearns, any lie or fib about their over-exposure to credit markets put more money in his pocket. The Fed and other government agencies must hire experienced outsiders that are upset with the way things have been running for the past decade. One of the founding principles of Weakonomics is the government sets a bad example. Way to let us down Fed, but we’ve come to expect it.
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