Why This Blog?

First, a bit about me.  I’m a former bank examiner who spent over 35 years in banking regulation from the Federal Home Loan Bank to the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), and finally to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).  I’ve supervised banks with asset sizes from less than $10 million to more than $2 trillion.  My work focused on capital markets, and I might assess a bank’s interest rate and liquidity risk, investments, and trading activity.  I have also reviewed capital levels and stress testing. 

An examiner’s job can be broken down into two critical elements.  First, we analyze things.   Those things may include financial data, econometric models, policies, and what bank management tells us.  That analysis assesses how much risk the banks are taking and whether they have the financial and human resources to prudently manage that risk.  We then try to communicate the analysis in a clear and even engaging way.

While at OTS, we produced a quarterly review of financial markets.  The review looked at the performance of bond and equity markets over the quarter, both generally and their effect on the banks we regulated.  The review also included a more general commentary that might alert examiners to a new and potentially risky financial product or share a perspective on analyzing risk.  OTS gave me fairly wide latitude on the commentary.  The tone could be irreverent and some of the topics were only tangentially related to financial markets or banking regulation.  I still avoided controversial topics or anything overtly political, and there at least had to be some connection to financial markets or banking.

I plan to take a similar approach with this blog, but with a wider remit.  Topics can extend to my other interests, which include current events, politics, sports, and culture. My posts will be more personal and more opinionated.  Whatever the topic, I hope to bring the knowledge, skills, and ability of someone who spent a career analyzing stuff for a living.