Sheila Bair, Brooksley Born: JFK Award Recipients For Predicting Crisis

BOSTON — Two U.S. federal regulators who sounded early warnings on the financial crisis and a Liberian peace activist who helped end that nation's civil war were honored for their efforts Monday at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chairwoman Sheila Bair, former chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Brooksley Born, and peace activist Leymah Gbowee (LAY'-mah BOH'-wee) were presented with Profile in Courage Awards, annual honors named for a 1957 Pulitzer Prize-winning book written by John F. Kennedy.

"(It's) a special honor to present the award to three women who have inspired all those who seek to bring about change in their political systems," said Caroline Kennedy, daughter of President Kennedy and head of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation that administers the awards.

Bair was one of the first to speak out about the subprime lending crisis, and Born warned a decade ago that unregulated financial contracts, including credit default swaps, could pose dangers to the economy. Gbowee organized a group of Christian and Muslim women to challenge Liberia's warlords.

In accepting her award, Bair said she was proud to join the list of those who have received past Profile in Courage awards. "I'm particularly pleased to be joining two other female awardees who stood up when some of their male counterparts failed to act, or worse, actively fought them," she said.

Gbowee received her award on behalf of the Liberian women who were featured in the "Pray the Devil Back to Hell" documentary about Liberia's civil war.

"For us women of Liberia, this award is a call that we will keep walking until peace, justice and the rights of woman (are) not a dream," Gbowee said, "but a thing of the present."

Comments

[AnonymousDissenter]

Women's Intuition? What kind of header is that? It's called competence and not being paid off.

[KoolBreez]

Second you on that..

Besides, there is no such thing as 'women's intuition'. It is a provable fact:

1. The leading cause of death for pregnant women in America? Homicide.. killed by the guy they chose to have the baby with..
2. An unbelivable number of women are married to gay men and don't see it, like Mrs. Craig of Idaho of Sen. Larry Craig fame, Ted Hargard's wife, Gov. Jim McGreevey's wife...These are just the famous examples..

Not very intuitive..

[WeTellTheTruth]

These are both people that Obama COULD HAVE HIRED.................instead he hired these people............

Barack Obama's economic team..........

Rahm Emanuel - Wall Street insider [ worked on wall street 2 1/2 years made $16.2 million]
Lawrence Summers - Wall Street insider [major sponsor of deregulation of wall street ]
Timothy Giethner - Wall Street insider [cant even pay his own taxes]
Mary Shapiro - Wall Street insider
Robert Rubin - Wall Street insider [close Obama advisor, made $115 million on wall street]
Steve Rattner - Wall Street insider [advisor on auto crisis, raised $100,000 for Obama campaign, his firm is now involved in a pay for play scandle.]

Obama is owned by the bankers.

[winchestereast]

and bush was not?

[Independentamanda852]

No ,Republicans lobby just as much as Democrats.The difference is that Republicans Free all Markets so more National Wealth is created,to lift up the classes.Capitalism is not pretty ,buts its 1000 times better than what Obama is doing.This could actually prove Capitalism over Socialism once and for all.Democrats throw Socialism in the markets to slow them down(dont want the voting base to succeed),but they do this little,by little.This time they through the whole wad in.

[angelaboston]

If a system is bing abused, I want to hire people that were working inside that system in order to understand what went wrong and how to fix it. This is why if my bank's computers are vulnerable, I WANT them to hire a computer hacker to figure out how to prevent trouble. Software hackers get hired like this every day. If my car has manufacturing defects, I want a guy who was working at the manufacturing plant where it was built to investigate what went wrong.

It's not about where these guys worked. I see no "guilt by association" issues here. It is a matter of their individual character and their individual expertise in the field. All of these guys pass muster. That said, I would be willing to concede a few "character" points on Geithner - I find it hard to believe that he does his own taxes and that he "missed" the taxable income from the World Bank and IMF.

[Playinjured]

Maybe I'm having a bad day or something but will someone tell me when we will focus our nations resources like Huffingtonpost.com and TV and radio on the issues that correct our nations problems? I mean, we act like we don't have any. WE DO! Big problems! And the rest of the world is leaving our great country behind whether we manipulate ourselves into thinking we aren't or attack others for even suggesting it. Maybe that's why Osama's attack against us worked and our attack against him is still in progress years later treading through Afghanistan and then to Iraq and then to Afghanistan again and partially in Pakistan. He's got us running around all over the place looking for him and his weapons. My mother used to always say to me growing up, "You shouldn't worry about how dirty someone else's house is until you've swept off your own porch."

[TheJibreelaMonsters]

Sorry Girls but Gerald Celente, the CEO of Trends Research Institute was way way way ahead of the curve before you ladies even pick up the bats. Any person worth there weight in Business school knew this was coming and lucky it came in a election cycle, I guess but who will have the egg on there faces will be the ones whom can't afford to suffer the most.

[Jazzman323]

Who did Sheila Bair speak out to about the subprime mortgage crisis? I am glad she did, but to whome, and why weren't her words heeded?

[inorbit]

No one listens to white, middle-aged women.

They are invisible.

Except for Hilary - which is why she was so beloved by white middle-aged women.

[heal57]

I expect this to change very soon. We women won't stay invisible and we won't be ignored. WE vote!

[Freenation]

congrats!

[CitizenCitizen56]

Harvard PhD trained mathematician Dr. Iris Mack should also be on this list.
She warned about the dangers on derivatives use while a money manager at Harvard Management Co.
For this she got fired by Larry Summers - Obama's economic advisor.
See more info about her on www.twitter.com/PhatMath.

[slaxx]

you go girls!

[Rolf618]

Guess its true - women are better with the checkbook

[malonerpool]

They also don't like to gamble their money.

[max08]

Yes, they are.

[rabiddog6708]

But buying shoes is their weakness and their downfall. Why does every woman need eighty pairs of shoes?

[Fremon]

This was wonderful. No wonder I didn't see these ladies of CNBC or Kudlow. They knew what they were talking about, that's why! I am sorry that Roubini was not in this group and I am sure that there were more. Battaglia on Kudlow was always raining on the Kudlow and cohorts parade of happy cheer and how wonderful the Republican economy was working. And they all went to live by the seashore.

[robeson]

It would be invaluable to know what their direct superiors said and did at the time they spoke out.

[plumnelly]

Timothy Geithner, Rubin, Summers, and I read Phil Grahmn all had a hand in trying to undermine these women, to the point of trying to fire them.

[afgail]

Why not an award for Sen Byron Dorgan. When the senate passed the Gramm, Leach, Bliley bill deregulating Wall Street Dorgan foresaw the coming debacle with stunning accuracy. He connected the dots, predicted financial collapse, huge federal bailouts and even the timeline for failure. Check the record.

[plumnelly]

There's room for more heroes, and he deserves to be recognized as one.

[fiberoptimist]

I saw Dorgan on the Rachel Maddow show recently. He accurately predicted the whole financial meltdown, but was largely pooh-poohed at the time. He deserves recognition.

Bair is the only Bush appointee who I actually respect and admire. Wow. She has a functional brain. How rad!

[climatebabes]

Common sense is all that was needed to predict this crisis. That and a correct assessment of the drive of the financial sector to commit rabit fraud, fleecing every trusting US citizen out if their hard earned wealth. No 401k, no social security, no bank account protection (the money just isn't there), no free markets, only collusion and fraud, robbery upon robbery going on even as we speak. Don't give awards to the watchfull, hand out punishment to the perpetrators !

[WeAreTheBorg]

Hear, Hear! Congratulations, Ladies! Well done! Well done, indeed!

Now we need them running the economy.

[GoCards1978]

...or at least writing the appropriate regulations/legislation to prevent this piracy from happening again. Wouldn't it be refreshing to have honest folks lobbying on behalf of the American people?

[nogimmicks]

It's too bad that Obama only appoints the guys who actually created the crisis to his Economy Team.

[winchestereast]

you're kidding? 2002 Sheila Bair was assistant secretary of financial institutions at treasury, big fan of deregulation, having worked for bob dole in financial regulatory legislative research, and testified in a way that makes deregulation sound like the HOLY GRAIL - good for financial institutions, good for the little people - it was the GOP mind-set - and she's head of the FDIC still -

[StonyStoner]

Who else is gonna understand the mess?

[Taaif Mehadi]

Its too bad you have nothing to say to help.