Four Questions for Tim Geithner (Excerpt)
Fortune- January 20, 2009
by Colin Barr

"There's no innocent explanation for what has happened," said Janet Tavakoli, a finance industry consultant and author of Dear Mr. Buffett, an accounting of how risky assets, leverage, and fraud led to the collapse of the financial economy.

She said Wall Street wholeheartedly embraced risk and leverage during the credit bubble earlier this decade, and that many big firms sold securities knowing full well they would go bad.

So far, no one has been brought to justice for this. That means that Geithner must prove that he will be an able steward of what Tavakoli called "the public trust."


END OF EXCERPT

Janet Tavakoli is the president of Tavakoli Structured Finance, a Chicago-based firm that provides consulting to financial institutions and institutional investors. Ms. Tavakoli has more than 20 years of experience in senior investment banking positions, trading, structuring and marketing structured financial products. She is a former adjunct professor of derivatives at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business. She is the author of: Credit Derivatives & Synthetic Structures (John Wiley & Sons, 1998, 2001), Structured Finance & Collateralized Debt Obligations (John Wiley & Sons, 2008), and
Dear Mr. Buffett: What An Investor Learns 1,269 Miles From Wall Street (John Wiley & Sons January 2009)

Clients of Tavakoli Structured Finance have the benefit of proprietary consultation, which is not available in any other paid or public forum. Clients also commission proprietary research and analysis.

TSF makes some information available to the general public. Please click here for other articles.