Levin Hearings

Was Bernie Madoff the Exception or the Rule?

Robert L. Borosage | Posted 05.25.2011

Robert L. Borosage

Were the big banks all knowingly running Ponzi schemes? That's the question that arises from the stunning hearings held this week by the Senate Permanent Committee on Investigations, chaired by Senator Carl Levin, on the collapse of Washington Mutual, the largest thrift failure in the U.S. Faced with looking like fools or knaves, the barons of the big banks -- from Robert Rubin to Lloyd Blankfein to WaMu's Kerry Killinger -- have chosen, not surprisingly, the fool.