Full faith and credit

About this book

"My friends, there is good news and bad news," writes L. William Seidman in his illuminating Washington memoir. "The good news is that the full faith and credit of the FDIC and the U.S. government stands behind your money in the bank. But the bad news is that you, my fellow taxpayers, stand behind the U.S. government." In Full Faith and Credit, the outspoken and controversial former FDIC/RTC chairman under Presidents Reagan and Bush offers a witty, Washington-laced journal on how politics shaped the S & L disaster and many other banking and financial issues of recent years. During his tenure as FDIC chairman, he was chosen by Congress to lead the cleanup of the S & L mess. Now he describes who was involved and how the government let it occur - including what he saw, heard, and survived as a highly visible member of the government. In his colorful and contrary style, Seidman takes a sharp, entertaining look at Washington's role in the nation's banking industry, and tells how the Reagan administration's deregulation of S & Ls left a vacuum that sucked in every slick operator and incompetent that could be found; how the bankers made a record number of bad real estate loans that regulators were too late in controlling; and how the S & L catastrophe was nurtured in the fertile ground of "politics as usual," apathy, and plain old criminality. He also discusses the lawsuits that came out of the scandal, focusing on Charles Keating, Michael Milken, and Neil Bush. Seidman's punchy narrative contains "close encounters" with John Sununu, Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady, Congressmen Henry Gonzales and John Dingell, and many others. He also answers the question "With all that experience, what have you learned?" with valuable observations from twenty years inside the Beltway.