Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission starts its work today, what’s the use?

This week on Thursday a U.S. financial crisis investigation panel will hold its first meeting as a part of Obama administration’s strategy to impose tougher control on the financial system. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission is responsible for finding the key factors that last year led world banks and capital markets to the brink of collapse.

Meantime, critics of the arrangement argue that as the reasons of the world financial crisis are already clear and known it would be just a waste of time to conduct such kind o ? probes. On the other hand, it should be noted that it will be still unique investigation as there was no examination from top to bottom in a public forum by a single panel armed with the power to subpoena witnesses and documents.

According to the commission its proponents, at least has the potential to profoundly influence policy. Just look, they say, at the impact in the 1930s of the so-called Pecora Commission, on which today's panel was loosely modeled.

The commission is chaired by Phil Angelides, former treasurer of California and failed candidate for governor in 2006. Angelides' vice chairman is former House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas. Former Senator Bob Graham is a commission member. So is Brooksley Born, who formerly chaired the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. She is well-known today for years ago calling publicly, but unsuccessfully, for regulation of OTC derivatives.

Other commission members come from the business world, Wall Street and Washington think tanks. The commission is required to report its findings to Congress and Obama by Dec. 15, 2010.