Fire the Banking Bastards: Sheila Bair Lays Down the Law

Keep an eye out for new resumes! Last week, FDIC head-honcho Sheila Bair said that some heads of the stress-tested banks may lose their jobs. You can almost hear Ken Lewis cry, "I thought that the test was pass-pass!"

In her interview on Bloomberg TV, Bair said that after injecting billions into an institution, it might be worth asking if the CEOs "have been doing a good job?" Wow, what a novel idea! I for one would like to see Bair personally fire the bastards.

Meanwhile, the Treasury Department released its monthly snapshot of the lending practices of the banks that took bailout money. The good news is that the institutions wrote more new loans in March than February, but "outstanding credit card balances held by major banks continued to fall, down two percent in March. In addition, total used and unused commitments for both credit cards and home equity lines of credit fell again in March as they have for every month of this survey." Additionally, as you might expect in a recession, business loans were well below normal levels.