by Calculated Risk on 1/12/2010 10:41:00 PM

From Dow Jones: Financial-Crisis Panel Set To Grill Wall Street Executives

Wednesday's hearing marks the first of two days of testimony before the financial-crisis commission.
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Top executives from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS), Bank of America Corp. (BAC) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) are likely to come under stiff questioning from members of the bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.
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Top policymakers, including Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro and Attorney General Eric Holder, are scheduled to appear on Thursday.

The purpose of this commission is to determine the causes of the crisis, and I hope they don't spend the entire day on pay. I think they should spend a significant amount of time discussing the entire chain of the originate-to-distribute model and other financial innovations (such as automated underwriting), the interaction with the credit agencies, and what regulators were asking and being told.

The tendency will be to focus on pay and gotcha type questions (and that makes good theater), but asking question about the process would be far more helpful.

Here is the FCIC website.