Accountable America Chairman Tom Matzzie submitted the following must read piece to the Huffington Post today. It outlines Accountable America's call for a stronger, more effective and more active Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC):

Have you heard of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission? If not, that's because this Commission with responsibility for investigating the financial crisis has so far failed to get to work. Last May Congress passed legislation creating the Commission with a broad mandate and specific powers including subpoena, public hearings, cross examination of witnesses under oath and even criminal referrals.

Where are the hearings? Where are the subpoenas? Where are the criminal referrals? Millions of people are out of work because of the casino economy setup by some in the financial sector.

So far, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission isn't living up to expectations. It has been eighteen months since the market crashes, fifteen month since the Madoff frauds were exposed, nearly ten months since Congress created the Commission and eight months since commissioners were appointed.

To date the Commission has held one public hearing with witnesses and then a forum recently with professors and academicians. No victims have had a chance to talk. No subpoenas have been issued. There is no real way for the public to give input.

With one in six Americans looking for work, the Commission can't be allowed to whitewash the failure and complicity of the SEC and other government regulators. The Commission needs to assign blame where blame is due, and bring the wrongdoers to justice.

It didn't have to be this way. The hopes for the Commission harkened back to the Pecora Commission of the 1930s whose findings led to passage of Glass-Steagall, the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Others were thinking of the role the 9/11 Commission played in pulling together a scrupulous accounting of the terrorist attack.

The victims of the hit and run economic crimes of this period expect and deserve much more. Years from now, there will be ample time for a leisurely stroll through the history of this crisis. Now is the time for action--investigations, prosecutions and more.

That's why a group I lead as Chairman, Accountable America, is working with victims of the Bernard Madoff frauds and others to push for investigation with teeth. Accountable America is sponsoring TV, radio and print ads, and organizing phone banks and public events.

Many Madoff victims see the lackluster government response so far as yet another form of financial abuse. One indirect Madoff investor, Suzanne Webel, who lost her life savings, said:

"We were robbed first by Madoff...and now by the government for failing to respond to our plight. We want the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to get to the bottom of this mess - we want a hearing on our issues and a commitment to compensate ALL victims fairly."

Accountable America sent a letter to Commission Chairman Phil Angelides and Vice-Chairman Bill Thomas, urging them to get serious about achieving their mandate. The letter aired several concerns:

* The Commission has made no commitment to hearing from the victims of Madoff frauds, other failed institutions or the broader financial crisis - despite a specific Congressional mandate to investigate these frauds. Victims deserve a full airing of their concerns.

* The Commission has not issued a single subpoena for current or former regulators who were either asleep at the switch or complicit in the financial crisis. Among many others, former S.E.C. Chairman Christopher Cox, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and former Chairman Alan Greenspan should all be subpoenaed and cross-examined.

* Testimony from academic experts is not enough. Too much time has been spent preparing for academic study instead of conducting investigations - which are the true intent of the Commission's Congressional mandate.

* The schedule and pace of work is too slow. Since July 2009, the Commission has only met in public three times. The first hearing with witnesses occurred just a month ago. If specific members of the Commission are dragging their feet or unwilling to work at an appropriate pace, they should be called to account publicly.

* The American people deserve clearer notice of the date, time and place of the Commission's meetings. The time of day for the most recent forum was announced only two days before it was held, and its location had inadequate space for the public. The Commission should announce a draft schedule of hearings with dates and locations for the rest of the year and ask for public input.

* Not a single subpoena has been issued. This is one of the Commission's most powerful tools, and it should not be left unused.

* If the reason for inaction is lack of resources, the Commission should publicly ask for what they need. Their work is too important to fall victim to indolence or red tape.

With the Commission's report due in December, there is still time to get on track -- but the clock is ticking.

Reflecting on his work in 1939, Ferdinand Pecora wrote:

Had there been full disclosure of what was being done in furtherance of these schemes, they could not long have survived the fierce light of publicity and criticism. Legal chicanery and pitch darkness were the banker's stoutest allies.

Pecora's singular focus on truth-finding did justice to victims and safeguarded America's economy for decades to come.

Chairman Angelides and the other nine members of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission have a choice to make.

They can continue to conduct a toothless, academic exercise that holds no one accountable.

Or they can learn the lessons of the past and bring the disinfecting power of sunlight to the shadowy corners of our financial system where greed lies in wait to strike again.

The clock is ticking. It's time for action.

Two weeks ago, we noted that the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) is planning to accept and discuss working papers from noted economists on the subject of the causes of the global financial crisis. The presentations will be given this Friday and Saturday, February 26-27th.

The forum, which is open to the public, will be held at the American University Washington College of Law, 4801 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, room 603. The forum will also be webcast live at FCIC.gov. Join us.

As we've noted previously, the FCIC was established to examine the causes of the financial collapse. In January, the commission received public testimony, and, now, they are convening a panel of experts. The panel includes academic luminaries in the field of economics.

The economists will present working papers to the Commission on the key issues and events leading up tot he crisis. Those papers will address the underlying causes of the crisis. A question and answer session with the Commissioners follows the presentations.

The forum, which is open to the public, will be held at the American University Washington College of Law, 4801 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, room 603.

- Welcome to the inaugural "In Case You Missed It", our weekly look around for interesting happenings in the fight for financial reform. This week we mostly focus on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission's first hearings:

Want to feel like you were you in the hearing room? Catch up with liveblogs from Campaign for America's Future and SEIU.

Mary Bottari at Bankster.com reminds us accountability, and an active Department of Justice, was a key component to our coming to grips with the Keating 5 and Savings & Loan scandals of the 1980s. Too big to fail doesn't mean too big for jail.

New Deal 2.0 has a great collection of posts from the FCIC hearings. They seem to think the Bankers gave flimsy excuses for their sociopathic nature (could there possibly be a good excuse?).

Public Campaign and Common Cause joined forces to give us some raw numbers about the four Wall Street CEOs that testified before the FCIC: their employees & PACS gave more than $43 million to federal candidates since 2000, and the four companies spent an astounding $109 million to lobby Congress during the same period.

Do you have a question for the fat cats that testified before the panel? Huffington Post is collecting questions from their readers and promises to deliver them to the Commission.

Lastly, this one isn't related to the FCIC, but it's nice to take a break and recognize the US Chamber of Commerce had a pretty bad 2009, and 2010 isn't really looking much better for their PR department.

In an Ideas piece in Slate, former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer tackles concludes that while we already know many of the causes of the financial collapse, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission should answer four unanswered questions. The first:

The first structural issue that Phil Angelides and his colleagues should investigate is what corporate boards knew about the state of corporations they governed and why they did so little to protect them. The commission should inquire about what information board members received about risk and leverage and how accurate that information was. We need to understand exactly what the boards of Citi, Lehman, Merrill, Goldman, and Bank of America were told. Tracing the information flow will also permit us to understand whether the risk analysis was wrong from its inception, ignored by those up the chain, or filtered as it went up the chain.

In other words: what did the fat cats know and when did the fat cats know it? Corporate boards have a responsibility to their shareholders across America and the world. When corporate boards shirk their responsibilities, it's not just their shareholders who hurt. Bad corporate governance impacts the entire economy and causes pain for millions of people. It's time for answers and sunlight from these corporate boards. Spitzer's second question:

Second, the Angelides commission should dig into the corporate-compensation process. What, exactly, did compensation consultants and compensation committees say and do—and why? My one investigative experience in this area revealed a veritable swamp of conflicts and aberrant information flow. (Anybody with time to spare and a desire to read a horrifying tale of corporate failure should read Dan Webb's report about Dick Grasso's pay package.) The commission should dissect the actual e-mail traffic, determine what metrics were used by the comp consultants, and examine what information went to the comp committees of each of the companies that received any federal assistance. I would give long odds that they discover a welter of conflicts of interests—e.g., compensation consultants whose livelihoods depend on the good wishes of the CEO whose compensation package they are determining.

The American taxpayer forked over hundreds of billions of dollars to these fatcats. And, they continued to take lavish bonuses. We deserve to know the nature of how these bonuses and other compensation structures. After all, our money flowed into these structures, and, if they are corrupt, we deserve to know about it. Spitzer's third question:

Third, the rating agencies must bare their souls to the world. We know that there is an inherent conflict of interest in the way ratings agencies are compensated, but we do not yet know whether their straight analytical skills were right, wrong, or somewhere in between. Examining their actual financial models might reveal that they were as sophisticated as possible—or that they were unforgivably sloppy.

The rating agencies are the equivalent of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. They are designed to provide independent analysis of risk. While Spitzer isn't alleging corruption, he wonders if their models are solid, or, just plain sloppy. If we're putting credence in these ratings, we need to know that they are based on sound modeling. Spitzer's final question:

Fourth, the commission must put the New York branch of the Fed under its microscope. The New York Fed was at the center of every major transaction during the meltdown, and it was the essential supervisor of the organizations and the credit markets beforehand. How did the New York Fed evaluate the risk, leverage, and stability of all the debt that accrued over the prior years. And what did New York Fed officials tell bank officials prior to and during the meltdown? The Fed has managed to avoid scrutiny for years. That should be permitted no longer. This record is too essential. Former New York Fed boss Geithner and Fed Chairman Bernanke misunderstood the impact that the sub-prime defaults would have on the broader credit markets: Was that a consequence of bad analytical work within the Fed? This question has enormous implications for how we respond, and it affects which institution should be vested with the so-called "systemic risk" regulator power.

We put a lot of faith in our regulatory bodies. Did they fail us? And, how, exactly, did they fail us in the lead up to the collapse? These are just a few unanswered questions and we deserve answers from Phil Angelides and his Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.