John Allison, CEO of BB&T Speaks Out

Last night I attended a lecture given by John Allison, the CEO of BB&T, about the current financial crisis. Allison is a rare breed today; there are few CEOs who have run financial institutions, successfully, for almost 30 years. He spoke out against the government intervention, which in Allison's view, got us into the financial crisis. The recent bailouts have helped failing institutions who have made terrible decisions and, in the process, hurt stable banks by imposing on them new regulations (such as accounting rule changes that hurt BB&Ts ability to make loans that make economic sense but would look bad on the new accounting sheets). He also said that the Fed is publicly stating that they are encouraging banks to give loans, and then the local regulators are giving banks a very different story. One of the more memorable lines of his talk was that the US is not heading toward socialism, but fascism. The government doesn't want to own the banks, they just want to have control over all of the banks. His view is obviously in the minority right now, especially when many other bank leaders are crying out for more help and more money from the government. I suggest looking at his letter to Congress.