Tom Donohue: The Perfect Risk Manager
Posted by Jim Wickenden on Thu, Nov 18, 2010 @ 09:20 PM
I read an article by Tom Donohue, the CEO and president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce today posted in the Huffington Post and had to wonder if he ever sits with the banking community or sees what is around him. He said one thing in particular that made me scratch my head in view of the recent elections and the fact that we are each and every day in touch with the mechanics and thinking of the financial industry. He said "the American People don't want status quo, they want their problems solved."
Ignoring the obvious that every wants their problems solved, I turn to the previous comment that the American people want change. There I have to disagree. The swing to the right and free market values at the behest of a nascent Tea Party smacks of anything but a willingness for change. It harks back to my last blog when I opened the room for discussion that America wishes to harken back to the idealist notion of America. An America where the dream is still alive and kicking in a yeoman-like paradise. The last thing America wants to change from its rose tinted image of itself. That is exactly why the new political party on the block is called the Tea Party; a return to the way things were or more precisely how people think they should have been.
And to bring my point up to date, on a daily basis, Latilla works shoulder to shoulder with the financial industry on risk assessment and its management. There may well be a desire to manage risk and to be more profitable as it does so, but the attitudes and procedures are exactly the same. There is a fundamental reluctance to change anything, it seems, and the American electorate seems to agree with me. Regulation designed to reform is being rejected and monitoring to be kept to a minimum, but just enough to placate the populace is shunned, is not the stance of a nation that wants change.
If the business of America is business and American business is unwilling to change its value system, and this is validated by the American people, then Mr. Donohue is talking out of his hat quite frankly.
This is not a political position, but it is one taken from a position of clarity and real time observation.
We are in the business of risk evaluation and Mr. Donohue is sitting very pretty right now. By insisting that America wants change yet backs the policies of the party of a return to the old ways, he is in a win-win situation the envy of anyone on the hill. Well managed Mr. Donohue.