Neil Barofsky: Another Financial Crisis All But Inevitable

Neil Barofsky: Another Financial Crisis All But Inevitable

HR: Why do you expect another financial crisis?
Neil Barofsky: It just comes down to incentives. A normally functioning free market disciplines businesses. The presumption of bailout for “too big to fail” institutions changes the incentives of a normally functioning free market. In a free market, if an institution loads up on risky assets with too little capital standing behind them, it will be punished by the market. Institutions will refuse to lend them money without extracting a significant penalty. Counterparties will be wary of doing business with companies that have too much risk and too little capital. Allowing “too big to fail” institutions to exist removes that discipline. The presumption is that the government will stand in and make the obligations whole even if the bank blows up. That basic perversion of the free market incentivizes additional risk.
"In his role as Inspector General, Mr. Barofsky’s mandate was to root out and prosecute waste, fraud and abuse. He gained nationwide recognition for his courage and willingness to stand up to the most powerful people and institutions in Washington D.C. and on Wall Street and for his relentless criticism of U.S. Treasury Department officials, including U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.
Prior to his role as Inspector General, Mr. Barofsky served as a federal prosecutor in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York for more than eight years. In that office, he headed the Mortgage Fraud Group as Senior Trial Counsel, to investigate and prosecute all aspects of mortgage fraud, from retail mortgage fraud cases to investigations involving potential securities fraud with respect to collateralized debt obligations (CDOs)."