The blame game begins

Let start with a typical American humor: “Now that the bailout vote's done, it's time for Washington to return to a more familiar game: finger pointing.”

A hearing on the collapse of Lehman Brothers was kicked off yesterday in Washington. Fuld, fomer CEO of Lehman, was spreading the blame. He said regulators "were privy to everything as it was happening," he said, explaining the last days of Lehman in his prepared remarks.

Get used to it. Remember House Republicans blaming a speech by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for the bill's initial failure last Monday? Today, as former AIG CEO gathered, they repeated this finger-pointing game again, they blamed each other for the AIG downfall.

Here are a few other dates when it's possible to catch "The Blame Game" on Capitol Hill:
--Oct. 16: George Soros, John Paulson and others hedge fund managers to discuss the role of hedge funds and their regulation.
--Oct. 22: Top executives from Standard & Poor's, Moody's Corporation and Fitch Ratings will talk about the responsibility of rating agency.
--Oct. 23: The committee's not letting regulators off the hook so easily. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, former Treasury Secretary John Snow and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Chris Cox are expected to testify.

None of this will solve the credit crisis, but the hearings may set the stage for what's likely to be a monstrous fight over financial regulation in 2009. While it’s fair to say there is no single issue or decision one can trace as a cause of the current financial crisis; it was multiple decisions and issues involving many actors over time led us to where we are today. In other words, there's plenty of blame to go around.