YouSaid · the spoken record

Sheila Bair

lines on the record: 85
first: 2026-05-15
most recent: 2026-05-15
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Of various sorts, and I wish I'd understand better about being brave during the dips, though. You know, I think usually I buy and hold, so I don't, I don't sell when the market's going down, which is the worst thing you can do. But I think I would have been a little more courageous buying in the dips, you know.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, no, it's not. And the daily compounding is, you know, it racks up pretty quickly. I think for markets, financial markets and investing in particular, I've actually done pretty well over time. My grandmother gave me $1,000 when she was getting later in life near her death, and she didn't have much, but she wanted to give my sister and I something. So she gave me $1,000 and told me to put an IRA. That was back when IRAs had just gotten started. And with my dad's self, I put it in the contra fund. It's worth a lot of money now. So I made some lucky, I've stuck mainly, I've picked a few stocks, but I've picked mainly diversified index funds.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. Well, compounding was something I did not understand in credit card raising. That comes up surprisingly frequently.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, just the work ethic. And again, keep an open mind. Sometimes things you weren't even thinking about come up and they turn out to be really, really good job choices.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, I would say be open minded because I think the job market is, you know, we don't know AI is kind of having a negative impact on entry level white-collar jobs. So you need to be thoughtful about that and how to navigate that. So I think you need to be open-minded, but preferably if you have options, pick a company that has a good culture. Ask them how they think about their customers. If they're an investment firm and they talk about them like Muppets, you probably don't want to work there, but if they talk about them as I remember Muppets, just to mention an example. So I think it's important any business actually, whether it's finance or any real economy business, how they think about their customers and treat their customers. Because I do think long-term success is based on having a mutually beneficial relationship with your customers. So I would”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, yeah, it's old, but there are three Moorse and then Endeavor, which was about Morse when he was younger and then Lewis, who is Morse's sidekick. So BBC did a really good job there. So yeah, these are old stuff. I recycle them. But yeah, I love BBC and I love British Rearbox. Our final two?”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which one? Foils were actually a TV series. It wasn't a book. That was one of the few things. But it's really good. I like the Morse, you know. Have you ever watched Morse? Inspector Morse? No, that sounds famous. That's”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One note on this BBC, I'm there, you know, I love the mystery. I would box yeah, all of all the Agatha Christies I've seen, David Suchet Pri Rosa are by far the best Foyle's War was great also Anthony Horr was, he didn't.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Or watching anything, yeah, I don't stream or podcast that much. I get podcaster, I like to read transcripts of podcasts because I can read a lot faster than I can listen.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was not just the people probably who were killed immediately were the lucky ones, the radiation sickness after the horrors. I saw that.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What they were quite of ruthless empire for a long time. Yeah, so there was a lot of, so I understand that. And I think, well, maybe the horror of it, and I think that's why John Hersey's book was so important, because it really underscored the horror of it. But maybe because people then understood how horrible it was and made it even less likely anybody would ever use it again. I'm going to rationalize it that way, but it is hard. You know, you look back and, oh my gosh, did we really have to do that to people? Because it was.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, and now you look back and why did any city get it? Couldn't you drop it over the ocean or something? You want to make a point. I mean, really, I don't, it's hard for me to understand now. I know, and that's just, you know, we're not there at the time. There was a lot of psychology during that psychology. So the Japanese had been, everybody had been horrible, but the Japanese had done some brutal things. Well, for centuries. Yeah, well, okay, all right.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Don't seem very unsettled on that score right now. So those are my two. I usually have two books going, one nonfiction and one fiction.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's right. So, yeah, and then I'm reading John Hersey's Hiroshima. My family and I are going to Japan at the end of the month, and I wanted to take in. Yeah, yeah. And the kids kind of bulk. I said, we're going to go to Hiroshima because I think that's an important part of history. We need to see this and understand it. And I read Hiroshima when I was young, you know, probably, you know, high school, I think when it came out. And it had such an impact on me in some reading again, and it still has an impact on me, and especially everything going on in the world now in other countries, even Japan, talking about wanting to have a nuclear capability because things just”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, she knows. Burns through those. Yeah, he's quite prolific. Yeah, he was actually chosen by the Ian Fleming estate to continue writing. He's written too. They're really good. Yeah. I actually like it.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. So I love murder mysteries. I'm reading Anthony Horowitz's new book, A Deadly Episode. I mean, if you know Anthony Horowitz, he's a British Mr. Know the name.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Contact with her over years. Another woman who inspired me, not a mentor, but San Joe O'Connor, the first woman Supreme Court justice, when I was on the judiciary committee, I got to handle her confirmation. And she was just a lovely person. So a lot of people I've met over the years, but Dole really stands out as my prime supporter and mentor in my career.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Government. Yeah. Well, Bob Dole obviously stands out. He was really taught me what public service meant. And he was always focused on the public interest. He was a populist in the good sense. He was from a small rural town in Kansas. He was horribly injured during World War II, laid up for years. The townspeople rallied, supported him, got him back to health, helped him become who he became. So he really focused on the public. And I learned that. And I think later in my career at the FDIC, we kept that focus on the public, the people who are using the banks, not the banks. Who are we helping? Are we helping the people who use banks? So I'm proud of that. And I learned a lot from him. You know, later I got to know Paul Volcker. I learned a lot from him. Paul. Yeah, Bud's right. Elizabeth Dole was someone I never really had a chance to work with her, but I knew her through the Senator Bob and have maintained.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Uncommon on a lease, and kids don't understand why, hey, no down payment. Well, yeah, but. At the end, you hand it back, it's just the call. It's exactly right. Yeah. So, yeah, it's really expensive for in person to buy a car. They can avoid that”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Really? Yeah, okay. That's funny. But it's really true. And it is good because, you know, cars are expensive. The average monthly payment is like $700 a month for a young boy. It's $1,000.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Fixate on. Like, all right, I feel like. The toy, I'm good. I don't need to. Thing for the garage. Well, that's right. There's a chapter on buying a car, too. I just bought it by a used car. I didn't want to appreciate so fast. It's going to be second car. But this, I couldn't believe it. I mean, I knew this. I've had experience in the past. It's been a while since I bought a car. He was trying to upsell me with everything. And now they're trying to sell me, give me all these service contracts. It would increase the price of the car by about 25%. It's just unbelievable. Kids want to buy cars. They want their own car. I don't think that's...”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Every hand goes up. Every hand goes up. It's amazing. Yeah. Already, you know, at seven years old, they've got buyers remorse. It's usually junkie toys.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First of all, don't buy any want that's not within your budget, and even if you do wait a week, you know, just don't buy it on impulse. Wait a week, come back to it. Do you really want it or not? When I go into grade schools and do readings, my common question is, raise your hand if you've ever bought something you wish you hadn't bought.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Understood, I gotta. More sidewalks or more more lawns Whatever it happened to be. It is, it totally is. And I, you know, so I think it feeds a lot of overspending. I think impulse, you know, kids more impulsively. I mean, they don't have the same impulse control adults have. And I think people know that. Retailers know that. Commercial entities know that. So they try to encourage them to make snap decisions, to buy something. And it's so important. I have a rule wait a week in my chapter on budgeting about buying things. Just wait a week. You know, there's some things you have to buy your needs, like your rent or whatever. But if it's your wants,”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“By now, people later. The whole idea is to facilitate impulse buying. Let's face it, you know, you're using BMPL when it's really beyond your budget to buy. You weren't thinking about buying it. You don't really have the money now to buy it, but you really want it. And that's what BMPL does. And BMPL users, a very high percentage of them, you know, first of all, it's not interest-free because it ends up going on your credit card because you can't pay it off. So you're just carrying the balance on your credit card. Or it's coming out of your checking account and you overdraft and you get an overdraft fee. So it's not really, they say it's interest rate for a lot of users. It's not really. I guess I'm in a financial.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Or subscriptions The credit card than with actually paying It does. It's not real money. It's funny money. Yeah. Well, I think it's important to attach an allowance to jobs. I think helping kids make the connection between having to work and earning money is really, really important because the parents are too generous. They let them use their credit card. So they start getting that easy usage. And if they're using their parents' credit card, they're not having to, it's not causing them any pain to spend money. So I think the parents can control a lot of this, but the kids need to understand the connection between earning money and spending money. And if they make that connection, they will be more judicious and careful with their money because they realize how dear it is because it took that $10 took an hour of their life breaking leaves or whatever, you know. So I think it's important to make that connection. And fun financial education. Understanding, you know, I have a chapter on, I spend a lot of time on credit cards because I think it is an early trap for a lot of families and a lot of kids.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“JP Morgan and a bunch of big employers announced they'll do a thousand dollar match and I hope so. I hope it is. I'm kind of a fiscal conservative when it comes to our deficits, but I think this is a good way to spend the money because it goes directly. You know where it's going. You know it's helping. And it's a wonderful way to learn about the power of compounding. Congress mandated that money has to be invested in broad-based index funds, which is good. We'd be seeing crypto and MIMS or whatever. So that's good. But you can see over time how it will grow. And I hope when they're 18, they can take it out, but I hope they leave it there. And it just converts them to a regular area at that point. But it's great. It's a wonderful financial educational tool, as well as some additional financial security for low-income families and their children.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, it's Trump accounts, yeah. Baby bonds Investment account. Yeah, it absolutely is. I think it's only for there's a three-year period where children are born within this three-year period, we'll get the $1,000, but it can be matched by employers. A lot of employers have hearing already.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Student loans, debt avoidance Why is this not just part of civics? Well, it can and should be. I mean, I think there's a big movement now to have a standalone high school personal finance class, which I think is good. But it really, it needs to be more than that. It needs to be every year. It needs to be introduced. And, you know, math curricula is an obvious place. Because I think it makes, it will make math more interesting to kids if you do use money examples, right? So you want to learn about ratios and percentages let's talk about compounding and how much your money grows if 4 percent inches a year or whatever so it does need to be introduced every year and and again that's one of the reasons my books are and they're supplements to curricula i don't write educational curricula but there certainly could be assigned readings to go with those those classroom efforts and i think that's important and the kids get it they're interested in it they absolutely get it they're not too young”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I did. Early 2000, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I did. I established the Office of Financial Education and it's grown now. It's in the Treasurer's Office now. And I think they hold a group. It's called FLEC. And it's basically a council of all the different financial education components of the various different regulatory agencies. And it's a good group. Yeah, I did start it. That's one of the things that got me interested. Actually, my first book was pre-crisis, rock, rock, and the saving shock. It actually came out in 2006 because based on that experience, it inspired me to start writing a kids books because I became aware that there really weren't any resources for elementary age.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and you're going to be going against people who do it for a living. They have a lot more access to data and expertise and, you know, algorithms and all the things, all the tools you will not have when you try to actively trade stocks.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because there's nothing behind them. I'm amazed that Bitcoin has held up. I think it's just, you know, it's kind of the granddaddy of them all. So if you're going to invest, most people do a Bitcoin because they've heard about it and the rest of it is crap. Bitcoin may be too, but it has lasted. I will give it that. Yeah, I mean, what are they supporting? And they're losing money. There was a study done of gambling apps that showed that the people that use gambling apps, only 5% take out more money than they put in. And it's addictive. And these gambling platforms, even if you start winning, well, wow, oh, you're doing great. Here's a little money. Why don't you keep going? You know, they want you to keep going until you start losing money because the odds are you will always lose money. And Bloomberg came out with some great research recently on prediction markets. 75% of the profits, I believe, are going to 1% of the users. Less than 1%. It's crazy.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To do all these gaming apps, and I just don't think the reality of what these kids are doing actually sinks in until they're really over their head. And I think it's purposeful. I think, you know, kids don't understand the difference between gambling and investing. Well, there's a big difference. You're investing. You're supporting capital formation and the real economy, helping businesses who make real goods and real services raise money and operate or supporting the secondary market that enables all of that. And what are you supporting with gambling or crypto? I mean, some crypto, to the extent it represents the technology. I think crypto technology is very valuable. But these different currencies and tokens, they have called them a machine.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Methods Well, it's very dangerous, and it's particularly a problem with young boys. And oh, by the way, they shouldn't be doing this if they're under 18, but a lot of them are, as we know, they're targeted. And they don't understand the worth of money, the apps just make it so easy. They don't make the connection between the financial losses they're experiencing. It's a game for them. And the industry advertises. They do gamify it. And even, you know, stock trading, some of these online brokers are big ones. They gamify it. And it's not a game. It's serious. Money serious. And I think one of the things from early on, if parents give their children allowances but tie that to work, I think it's really important for kids to understand early on the connection between work and money. It's not just free easy, you know, because too many kids don't make that connection and their parents are generous with the credit cards or whatever. And they use their credit card number.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, yeah, which if it invests in the SP 500, it would be worth around $240, $250,000 now. So there you go. But I think, you know, just avoiding things like that, the average family pays $1,600 a year in credit card interest, if that was just put into an S&P $500 index fund. Boy, you know, over 30 or 40 years, you're talking real money. So that was, I wanted to emphasize that the simplicity of how to build wealth, compounding opportunity costs are big themes. I think those are so fundamental to understanding how to manage money. But basically, I just want to help kids avoid mistakes. I don't want them to have financial problems when they grow up. I want them to get off on the right foot, which I did not, and a lot of people don't.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Behaviors that cost people money, like carrying a credit card balance, I'm very open in my first chapter about my, I totally got in trouble with credit card debt. I was just graduated from law school. I was a civil rights lawyer that didn't know anything about finance, didn't care, thought it was beneath me. I needed to buy some clothes for work. I needed to get an apartment and furnish my apartment. And so I was getting all these solicitations from various credit card issuers who had found out that I was now working for a living somehow. So yeah, I got in trouble with credit card debt and I made that minimum payment. I thought, this is great. I can borrow this money. I need this tiny little payment every month. And I ended up, I think it was about $6,000 in interest when all was said and done.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. Yeah, so it was, I did want to get some accurate information out there because there's a big theme of this book is, you know, I say in the introduction building wealth is not hard. You need to establish a regular saving investing habit. You need to avoid debt. That's really what you need to do. But there's so much advice that's just the opposite, especially on social media pushes debt. Well, why bother with an ISAF index fund? You can go borrow some money and buy a rental property and make way more returns. No, no, no. But there's crazy stuff like that or borrowing to invest in crypto or MIMS or gambling and their kids are getting confused about the difference between gambling and investing. They're very different things. So I wanted to provide some correctives to that. And then just basically also address and flag common financial.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Young adults and teenagers. Well, actually, it was my editor who, you know, everybody, when I first started running the picture books, everybody said, oh, this is too elementary school children are too young for this. And they're not. And the books have sold well, and they totally get it. But my publisher, everybody said, you need to write a book for teenagers. And my publisher thought that was a good idea as well. And so I thought about it. And I thought, yeah, because, you know, there's more and more financial education being required in high schools. And I'm concerned that as schools start offering these courses, that there's good quality, accurate content. There's a lot of people out there providing financial, you know, a lot of people on social media, a lot of curricula, you know, sponsored by industry groups. And so I thought, well, I'm going to throw my hat in here to try to provide some basic financial advice to teenagers as they're entering adulthood. So that was the, I will have to say.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We probably will, and I think the part of it that's really, really struggling are the private liberal arts schools. And they became too pricey. And I think that's sad because I used to be the president of one of those colleges. And I think they do offer very special educational experience. It's more high touch. It's more, you know, for some going to college when you're 17, 18 years old can be pretty traumatic. You've never been away from home, you know. And so from students, that's small intimate college environment was a good option, but they're really struggling now. And so I think we'll still have them, but I think there'll be a lot of consolidation there. And then it's the weaker schools. They're not proving their worth, they're going to. They're going to close”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was a college president. I've taught at university. I think it's a wonderful experience, but it's not for everybody, and you don't have to do it, and there's no stigma if you don't do it. You know, you might want to go directly into the workforce, learn on the job, you might want to go to a trade school, there are, you know, community colleges. Got to be careful there too, but many of them provide really good education that's less expensive and a shorter duration. So I think students and their parents are also thinking more broadly that they don't have to go to college. There may be other options available.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think things are getting better, and a lot of it is something else that Trump, the first Trump administration did, which Biden continues and the current Trump administration continues, is to publish post-graduate outcomes. So you can go on college scoreboard now and put in a college and a degree that you may be thinking about it. And you can see what the graduates are actually making. And you can find out the graduation rate. You can find out the retention rate. You can find out all sorts of information that will tell you, is that college graduating students and are they getting good jobs after they leave? And so I think more and more parents and student advisors, high school college advisors are using those tools. They're more calculators too that are based on help you figure out how.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know I don't absolve the borrower either. They should have known better. But the schools let this happen, these graduate professional schools can be real money makers. They are, the graduate schools in particular, real money makers for colleges. And the Grees are frequently do not enhance the earnings potential of the student.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For whatever, yeah. So tuition is any parent knows or student knows this skyrocketed become very unaffordable without borrowing. But there was all this easy money. And the undergraduate is a problem with the graduate schools. A lot of young people then sold a bill of goods to get a master's or a PhD because they're unlike undergraduate loans. There is some caps on your federal loans, but no effective caps. That's been changed now too. There are some caps, thank goodness, on your graduate and professional schools. So somebody like me, oh, I'm going to go get a PhD in philosophy so I can teach, right? So I pay $300,000 to get my PhD in philosophy and get a job maybe paying 60,000 a year at some small college. Well, that makes sense. But I think that's happened to a lot of people. And I don't think...”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was the classic misaligned economic incentive. So with the best of intentions, the Congress said, okay, for now on, all the student loans can be made, pretty much all of them are going to be made by the government because we're worried that banks are not treating borrowers as well as they should. So we're going to be doing this. And then the colleges themselves will basically originate the loan. So you apply to a college and the college financial aid office will come up with a financial aid package and they will calculate how much you need to borrow to go to their school. Well, now what are their incentives? You know, they're going to get the money buying for a tuition room and board. So they're going to get the money. They're not on the hook if the student can't repay the loan. So what do you think is going to happen? And what happened exactly is you could have predicted it. Inflation, you know, with tuition, you know, many multiples would 9%.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, I do think there needs to be more accountability for colleges to assume something. The schools themselves. Yes, the colleges themselves.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“From not paying for years. And Trump did that too. We had this three or four year long moratorium. People are going to have to pay now. That's going to hurt. They haven't made room in their budget for these lump pay.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Even if you're struggling, you can pay $10 a month. And then if that payment is so low, if your income driven payment is so low that you're not covering your interest, the government will pay $50 a month to lower your principal. So so long as you're making at least $10 a month, your principal will go down each month. And I think this will be, it's simpler and will provide better incentives to keep make-loan payments, keep up the loan payments, because you'll actually be able to see the principal going down. So I give credit in full disclosure, my son, who's a fellow at the AEI, was also heavily involved in this. So he's a chipman off the old block though. We think a lot of student debt. Yeah, simplification, more accountability. And those are the things that this bill accomplished. So I'm hoping that this gets straightened up. And people are having to pay now, but the transition to going from...”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Was going into your debt principal, and it was getting bigger and bigger. Just recapitalized. So, yeah. So even if you were making some payment, you got frustrated because your dad was getting bigger and bigger. That's all gone away with now. Negative amortization has been abolished. Everybody has to pay at least $10 a month. I don't think that's unreasonable. If you got a loan from taxpayers,”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The BBB, the big beautiful bill, I hate that name, but it had some really important reforms to the student loan assistance. So they've dramatically simplified the repayment options. There's now a standard plan and a one income-based repayment plan. They have imposed some accountability on colleges, which desperately needed to be done. And so it's easier to kick colleges now with high default rates out of the loan system. They have gotten rid of negative amortizations. One of the frustrating things about student loan borrowers was that because in previous administrations, the repayment plans that were based on a percentage of your income were set so low that people were even, some of them were paying zero because you had to earn a certain amount of money before a loan payment obligation even kicked in. But what happened was then they were for bookkeeping purposes or whatever, they would negatively amortize the loan. So all your unpaid interest.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The student debt crisis Well, and I think the headline numbers, or in this K shaped economy, I think the headline numbers can be misleading because you've got to look at how all that wealth is being distributed. But I think for student debt, I will give credit to the Trump administration in Congress.”
2026-05-15 · Masters in Business · Stopping Poor Financial Decisions with Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source