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Former FDIC Chairman Bill Seidman dies at 88
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by Amy Judd | May 13, 2009 at 12:52 pm
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The former FDIC Chairman and CNBC Chief Commentator, William 'Bill' Seidman has died at the age of 88 in Albuquerque, after a bout of illness. His family had the following to say about their loved one:
"Our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather devoted himself to education, to the business community, to the service of his country, and most of all to his family and friends," his family said in a prepared statement. "He was an extraordinarily gifted and generous man whose wit and wisdom touched all who knew him. For our family, the loss is immeasurable."
Bill Seidman was born April 29, 1921 in Michigan and after recieving his undergrad degree from Dartmouth, his LLB from Harvard and his MBA from the Universtity of Michigan's Ross School of Business, he went on to serve in WWII in the Navy as a communications officer. He received a Bronze Star for his work in the Philippines, Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
He was Gerald Ford's Assistant for Economic Affairs from 1974 to 1977, and then he served with Ronald Regan as co-chair of the White House Conference on Productivity from 1983 - 1984.
In 1985 be became the chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and was asked by President George Bush Sr. to head the new federal agency of Resolution Trust Corp.
He wrote a few books during these years, one of them being 'Full Faith and Credit', and he also appeared hundreds of times on CNBC, commenting on some of the biggest business stories of the past 20 years. He started writing for the CNBC blog in 2008.
He is also credited with starting up Seidman & Seidman Certified Public Accountants in New York from 1968 to 1974, and built it up into a multi-million dollar business.
He also biked to work almost every day.
At the time of his death he was still working as a consultant to RWB Capital Management.
He is survived by his wife, six children and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
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Julian Hatton (not verified)at 19:39 on May 13th, 2009
this quote is from an article in Fast Company, published December 19, 2007, titled The Enforcer:
While he is critical of the "free-market zealots" in the Reagan administration who defanged S&L overseers, Seidman is intensely ambivalent over instituting the kind of reforms that will rein in future Enrons. On the one hand, he insists that the Enron scandal will ultimately benefit the marketplace. "A free market only works with a lot of government supervision, and Enron will ensure that government oversight of the energy industry will improve markedly. Supervision will get better. We'll have greater transparency. The information that investors get will improve."
"... a free market only works with a lot of government supervision..."