Sheila Bair, the former Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chair, who was in place when the financial crisis hit does not believe additional quantitative easing will help the economy or encourage banks to lend money.
Bair made those assertions during an interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box.
Instead, Bair believes Congress needs to work on policies that will address the nation’s rising unemployment rate and the country’s long-term fiscal issues.
Bair also sees inflation as a risk factor if the Fed pursues QE3.
“If I had any confidence [that] it would help lending support real economic activity, I would say go for it, but there are significant risks,” Bair told CNBC.
Bair also met with groups associated with the Occupy Wall Street movement and openly discussed challenges she faced in banking oversight at the FDIC. The groups she met with include Occupy Bank, Alternative Banking and Occupy the SEC, according to a report from EconoMonitor.
While Bair conveyed a strong preference for banking regulations and lifelong regulators who devote their careers to oversight, she did express some disappointment in the complexity of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s proposed rules.
Bair apparently went strong on the political apparatuses that are attacking the role of regulators and suggested the public needs to get harder on lawmakers to force them to be harder on the banks.
kpanchuk@housingwire.com
