Too Interconnected to Fail

Banking Bad examines past financial crises from the perspective of people directly responsible for steering the system through financial calamity. It tells the story of the real time, high-pressure decisions made to deal with bank failures, contagion events, financial rescues and the human decision…

In September 2008, as the collapse of Lehman Brothers shook confidence across the global financial system, Washington Mutual became the largest bank failure in U.S. history. In this episode, former FDIC Director of Resolutions and Receiverships Jim Wigand joins John Bovenzi and Tom Vice to provide …

In this episode of Banking Bad, we speak with Sandra Thompson, former Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and former Director of Bank Supervision at the FDIC, about one of the most important—but least understood—parts of financial crisis management: the lender of last resort.

This episode tells the story of Penn Square National Bank through the eyes of Lesylee Sullivan Hodge, who worked at the bank for a brief time before beginning a long career with the FDIC. What began as a small Oklahoma City bank became a symbol of how quickly a financial institution can go rogue wh…