Bull by the Horns Fighting to Save Main Street from Wall Street and Wall Street from Itself

The former FDIC chairwoman, and one of the first people to acknowledge the full risk of subprime loans, offers a unique perspective on the greatest financial crisis the US has faced since the Great Depression. Sheila Bair is widely acknowledged as one of the first people to identify and accurately assess the subprime crisis. Appointed by George W. Bush as the chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in 2006, she witnessed the origins of the financial crisis and in 2008 became one of the key players trying to repair the damage to our economy. Bull by the Hornsis her remarkable and refreshingly honest account of that contentious time and the ensuing struggle for reform that continues to this day. A levelheaded, pragmatic figure with a clear focus on serving the public good, Bair was often one of the few women in the room during heated discussions about the economy. Her narrative of Citibank's attempted takeover of Wachovia is a stinging indictment of how regulators and the banks worked against the public interest at times to serve their own needs. As Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Postcolumnist Steven Pearlstein said, "Bair is everything you'd want in a public servant: thoughtful, practical, independent-mindeda straight shooter with political savvy who can manage the details of policy without losing sight of the big picture....She never forgets that her most important constituency isn't the thousands of banks she regulates but the millions of Americans who use them." Bair is steadfast in her belief that the American public needs to fully understand the crisis in order to bring it to an end. In Bull by the Horns, she clears away the myths and reveals a critical plan for getting our financial and regulatory systems back on track.

Sheila Bair is the former Chairman of the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation). She has been covered—and lauded—everywhere from The New Yorker to The Washington Post to The Wall Street Journal, and in 2008 and 2009 Forbes named her the second-most powerful woman in the world. Prior to assuming her post at the FDIC, Bair served as assistant secretary for financial institutions at the US Department of the Treasury and as senior vice president for government relations of the New York Stock Exchange.