Firing Line: Contingency Planning Is Key

Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner is heading the effort to identify financial institutions whose collapse would adversely impact the financial system.

The institutions, identified by the government as "Tier 1 financial holding companies," could encompass banks, insurers and possibly large hedge funds. Main Street could probably identify several obvious candidates: Bank of America(BAC Quote), Citigroup(C Quote), AIG(AIG Quote) and General Motors(GM Quote).

As we rush to regulate, we also need to look how we arrived at our current position in order to learn how to avoid a similar situation in the future. ...