Bair Market

The FDIC chairwoman's great ideas for preventing the meltdown of America's banking industry.

By Daniel Gross
Posted Friday, July 18, 2008, at 12:39 PM ET

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In ordinary times, a public discussion on deposit insurance would hold all the drama of a seminar on Canadian land use. But these are no ordinary times. Last Wednesday at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a bank of television cameras, several reporters, and about 100 people picking at their lunch—arugula salad, stuffed chicken, a strange fruit/cream confection—paid close attention when a fiftysomething woman with a professorial mien took the podium. Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., stood under a large banner reading, "CONFIDENCE AND STABILITY"—an unsubtle attempt to bolster flagging confidence in the nation's financial sector. The panel discussion, featuring Terry Savage, the Suze Orman of the Windy City, was part of a $5 million public education campaign marking the FDIC's 75^th anniversary. As Bair told me before the excitement began: "We're bringing in local experts, and banks, and talking about deposit insurance." Par-TAY!