I saw a bit in the Jay Leno monologue. Jay has a new deck of playing cards
called “CEOs of Evil”, including the ceo’s at AIG, Lehman Bros.

This could be the start of an very interesting trend, personal reapprasials
on these ceo’s of evil.

http://www.mccainalert.com

I can’t pretend to know how English laws should change to govern English institutions. From our side of the pond though, I would hope that we don’t over-regulate financial institutions. Our reactionary Sarbanes-Oxley laws came about after the collapse of Enron and have made our capital markets significantly less competitive. It created an opening for other major stock exchanges (London) to compete for listings by companies seeking to go public. It has also made American companies reluctant to go public and tap the capital markets. Limiting the options of our own companies can only make them less competitive.

The biggest problem, in my humble opinion, was the ability over-leverage portfolios. Financial institutions sometimes had portfolios leveraged 20-to-1 in terms of debt-to-principal. Without putting in too many regulations, I would attempt to reign in this practice. I don’t pretend to know how to do that – my only caveat would be to not over-regulate.

Here’s something one of our great Founding Fathers said:

“All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently for the worse.” – Benjamin Franklin

Specifically about Richard, people’s commentary was very heavily focussed on his personality and in light of what has transpired re: the bailout and the fortunes of other organisations, one must wonder what role this played during the events leading up to Lehman’s filing. While we may never know, it is a point that for me at least, endures.

The other interesting point about building a better future is that while this would largely fit into the systems box, I don’t really feel that improving on banking business models and their governance per se is my greatest strength! That said, I wholly support the notion of a better future and avoiding these mistakes again. (Out of interest, where are you with any possible improvements here?)

By extension, I would suggest that even with a revised set of rules for banks, there will still be self awareness, relationship and cultural failings of leadership. Perhaps not on the scale of the ’systemic meltdown’ we are currently witness to, but significant for colleagues, customers and other stakeholders nevertheless.