How to Have a Successful Failure

Recommended reading: The upcoming FDIC quarterly contains a fantastic article on how, if Dodd-Frank were law then, Lehman Brothers might have been liquidated in a more orderly  and rapid fashion after its failure. The article is a nice summary of the events leading up to the Lehman failure, the relevant provisions of the Dodd Frank Act, and a description of how these would have been implemented in the case of Lehman.  I learned a number of things about how the financial regulation will look going forward. Something I did not know from Dodd-Frank’s orderly liquidation process is that “The Dodd-Frank Act provides that the FDIC may borrow funds from the Department of the Treasury, among other things, to make loans to, or guarantee obligations of, a covered financial company or a bridge financial company to provide liquidity for the operations of the receivership and the bridge financial company.” At least according to current law, any losses on this mini-bailout are born by the industry, not the taxpayer.