Barack Obama Needs a CTO - Chief Transparency Officer

November 18, 2008
By Mukesh Chatter

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President-elect Barack Obama has mentioned his desire to hire a CTO (Chief Technology Officer) for the country. I agree - however, the CTO we need is a "Chief Transparency Officer."

The job description is simple: to ensure that there is full visibility for taxpayers regarding anything which could put their money at risk. Consider the case of some investment banks, who conveniently kept certain transactions off their balance sheets, preventing visibility into the excessive risks they were taking while simultaneously receiving top-notch ratings from the rating agencies. Perfectly legal. However, should it ever have been allowed?

The buyers of the trillions of dollars worth of Credit Default Swaps these banks were underwriting were also unaware of the huge default risks these banks carried. In fact, nobody had a clear view of the full risk exposure, not even the Feds. This is in sharp contrast to a small business owner who would have been in very real trouble with the law for keeping two sets of books.

It seems there are two sets of rules, one for those involved with "Wealth Creation" – the factories, the start-ups, the small businesses and then another set of rules (much more opaque) for those involved in "Wealth Management." It's no wonder "wealth management" is the most lucrative profession in this country by a wide margin.

The Chief Transparency Officer needs to make absolutely sure that everyone from Wall Street to Main Street follows the same set of rules. What's good for Main Street ought to be good enough for Wall Street.

Any thoughts?