Wayne A. Abernathy, Wild Bells
Wayne A. Abernathy is a former U.S. Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions under President George W. Bush, receiving the Alexander Hamilton Award in recognition of his service. In that office he was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. Prior to his work at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy served as Staff Director of the Senate Banking Committee, under Chairman Phil Gramm.
Following his service at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy worked for 15 years on the staff of the American Bankers Association, as Executive Vice President for Financial Institutions Policy and Regulatory Affairs.
Previous experience with the Senate Banking Committee includes serving as Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Securities during 1995-1998. From 1989 until 1994, Mr. Abernathy was a Republican economist for the committee. He previously worked as a senior legislative assistant for Senator Gramm during 1987-1989 and as an economist for the Banking Committee’s Subcommittee on International Finance and Monetary Policy during 1981-1986, under Chairman Jake Garn.
Mr. Abernathy earned his bachelor’s degree in International Studies from The Johns Hopkins University in 1978. In 1980, he received a master’s degree in International Studies from the School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University.
Wayne A. Abernathy, Wild Bells
Wayne A. Abernathy is a former U.S. Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions under President George W. Bush, receiving the Alexander Hamilton Award in recognition of his service. In that office he was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. Prior to his work at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy served as Staff Director of the Senate Banking Committee, under Chairman Phil Gramm.
Following his service at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy worked for 15 years on the staff of the American Bankers Association, as Executive Vice President for Financial Institutions Policy and Regulatory Affairs.
Previous experience with the Senate Banking Committee includes serving as Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Securities during 1995-1998. From 1989 until 1994, Mr. Abernathy was a Republican economist for the committee. He previously worked as a senior legislative assistant for Senator Gramm during 1987-1989 and as an economist for the Banking Committee’s Subcommittee on International Finance and Monetary Policy during 1981-1986, under Chairman Jake Garn.
Mr. Abernathy earned his bachelor’s degree in International Studies from The Johns Hopkins University in 1978. In 1980, he received a master’s degree in International Studies from the School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University.
Professor of Law and Public Finance, NSU Florida Shepard Broad College of Law
Tim Canova is a Professor of Law and Public Finance at the NSU Shepard Broad College of Law, with broad experience in law teaching, private practice, and public policy. He teaches Constitutional Law II: First Amendment Law, Corporations, Business Entities, Regulation of Financial Institutions, and a Seminar on Law, Finance, and Markets at Nova. He previously taught at the Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of Law in Orange, California, where he served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and the inaugural Betty Hutton Williams Professor of International Economic Law. He was first granted tenure at the University of New Mexico School of Law and he has taught as a visitor at the University of Arizona and the University of Miami.
Canova's work crosses the disciplines of law, public finance, history, and economics. He has been a leading critic of private central banks, including the Federal Reserve. His work has been published in more than two dozen book chapters and articles in the U.S. and overseas, including in the Oxford University Press, Edward Elgar Publishing, Harvard Law & Policy Review, American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Brooklyn Law Review, Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy, and UC Davis Law Review. Canova was an early critic of financial deregulation and the Federal Reserve under Alan Greenspan. In the 1980s, he wrote critically of the federal bailout of Continental Illinois, the nation’s seventh largest commercial bank, and the collapse of the savings & loan industry. In the 1990s, prior to the Asian currency contagion, he argued against the International Monetary Fund’s capital account liberalization program. Throughout the Bush administration, he warned of an impending crisis in the bubble economy. Following the 2008 financial collapse, he lectured and published widely on the causes and consequences of the economic and financial crisis. In 2011, Canova was appointed by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to serve on an Advisory Committee on Federal Reserve Reform with leading economists, including Jeffrey Sachs, Robert Reich, James Galbraith, and Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz.
Canova also writes and advocates in the areas of campaign finance and election reform, a research agenda informed by his 2016 campaign challenging the then chair of the Democratic National Committee for her U.S. House of Representatives seat in a hotly contested election. Canova’s campaign went viral, raising $3.8 million from 209,000 individual donations and setting a record at the time for the highest percentage (76%) of small online donations for any campaign for federal office. The election results were marred by evidence of statistical anomalies, allegations of electronic voting irregularities, and an order by Florida’s 17th Judicial Circuit Court finding that the Broward County Elections Supervisor had illegally destroyed every ballot cast. In 2019, Canova testified to the Florida Advisory Committee of the United States Civil Rights Commission about the systematic electronic disenfranchisement of voters in Florida elections.
Canova received his A.B. degree from Franklin and Marshall College and his J.D. degree, cum laude, from the Georgetown University Law Center. He has a master’s diploma in graduate legal studies from the University of Stockholm where he was a Swedish Institute Visiting Scholar. He previously served as a legislative assistant to the late U.S. Senator Paul E. Tsongas and practiced law in New York City with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Mudge Rose Guthrie Alexander & Ferdon.
Featured Article entitled “Central Bank Independence as Agency Capture: A Review of the Empirical Literature, Banking & Financial Services Policy Report 30:11 (Nov. 2011).
Principal, Ely & Company, Inc.
Bert Ely has specialized in deposit insurance and banking structure issues since 1981. In 1986, he became an early predictor of the S&L crisis and a taxpayer bailout of the FSLIC. In 1991, he was the first person to correctly predict the non-crisis in commercial banking; in 1992, he predicted an eventual taxpayer bailout of the Japanese banking system.
Bert continuously monitors conditions in the banking and S&L industries, monetary policy, and the growing federalization of credit risk. He has helped to draft legislation to enact the cross-guarantee concept for privatizing banking regulation and its related deposit insurance and systemic risks. He has testified on numerous occasions before congressional committees on banking issues and he often speaks on these matters to bankers and others.
Bert first established his consulting practice in 1972. Before that, he was the chief financial officer of a public company, a consultant with Touche, Ross & Company, and an auditor with Ernst & Ernst. He received his MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1968 and his Bachelor's degree in economics in 1964 from Case Western Reserve University.
Wayne A. Abernathy, Wild Bells
Wayne A. Abernathy is a former U.S. Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions under President George W. Bush, receiving the Alexander Hamilton Award in recognition of his service. In that office he was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. Prior to his work at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy served as Staff Director of the Senate Banking Committee, under Chairman Phil Gramm.
Following his service at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy worked for 15 years on the staff of the American Bankers Association, as Executive Vice President for Financial Institutions Policy and Regulatory Affairs.
Previous experience with the Senate Banking Committee includes serving as Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Securities during 1995-1998. From 1989 until 1994, Mr. Abernathy was a Republican economist for the committee. He previously worked as a senior legislative assistant for Senator Gramm during 1987-1989 and as an economist for the Banking Committee’s Subcommittee on International Finance and Monetary Policy during 1981-1986, under Chairman Jake Garn.
Mr. Abernathy earned his bachelor’s degree in International Studies from The Johns Hopkins University in 1978. In 1980, he received a master’s degree in International Studies from the School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University.
Managing Parter, Federal Financial Analytics
Principal, Ely & Company, Inc.
Bert Ely has specialized in deposit insurance and banking structure issues since 1981. In 1986, he became an early predictor of the S&L crisis and a taxpayer bailout of the FSLIC. In 1991, he was the first person to correctly predict the non-crisis in commercial banking; in 1992, he predicted an eventual taxpayer bailout of the Japanese banking system.
Bert continuously monitors conditions in the banking and S&L industries, monetary policy, and the growing federalization of credit risk. He has helped to draft legislation to enact the cross-guarantee concept for privatizing banking regulation and its related deposit insurance and systemic risks. He has testified on numerous occasions before congressional committees on banking issues and he often speaks on these matters to bankers and others.
Bert first established his consulting practice in 1972. Before that, he was the chief financial officer of a public company, a consultant with Touche, Ross & Company, and an auditor with Ernst & Ernst. He received his MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1968 and his Bachelor's degree in economics in 1964 from Case Western Reserve University.
Senior Fellow, Arthur F. Burns Fellow in Financial Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute
Peter J. Wallison holds the Arthur F. Burns Chair in Financial Policy Studies and is co-director of AEI’s program on Financial Policy Studies. Prior to joining AEI, he practiced banking, corporate and financial law at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, D.C., and New York. Mr. Wallison has held a number of government positions. From June 1981 to January 1985, he was General Counsel of the United States Treasury Department, where he had a significant role in the development of the Reagan Administration's proposals for deregulation in the financial services industry. During 1986 and 1987, Mr. Wallison was White House counsel to President Ronald Reagan, and between 1972 and 1976, he served first as Special Assistant to New York's Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller and, subsequently, as counsel to Mr. Rockefeller as vice president of the United States.
Mr. Wallison was admitted to practice before the courts of New York and the District of Columbia, and is retired from practice in New York. He continues to be a member of the District of Columbia Bar Association. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College in 1963 and law degree from Harvard Law School in 1966.
Mr. Wallison is the author of Ronald Reagan: The Power of Conviction and the Success of His Presidency, published in December 2002 by Westview Press. On campaign finance, he is the author (with Joel Gora) of Better Parties, Better Government, (AEI Press 2009). On financial or regulatory matters, he is the author of Back From the Brink, a proposal for a private deposit insurance system, and co-author of Nationalizing Mortgage Risk: The Growth of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; The GAAP Gap: Corporate Disclosure in the Internet Age; Competitive Equity: A Better Way to Organize Mutual Funds; Bad History, Worse Policy: How a False Narrative about the Financial Crisis Led to the Dodd-Frank Act (AEI Press 2013); and Hidden In Plain Sight: What Caused the World’s Worst Financial Crisis and Why it Could Happen Again (Encounter Books 2015). His most recent book is Judicial Fortitude: The Last Chance to Rein in the Administrative State, published by Encounter Books in October 2018.
He testifies frequently before committees of Congress, and is a frequent contributor to the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal and other print and online journals. He has also been a speaker at many conferences on financial services, housing, the causes of the financial crisis, the Dodd-Frank Act, accounting, and corporate governance, and was a member of the Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee between 1995 and 2015. He was a member of the SEC Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting (2008), co-Chair of the Pew Financial Reform Task Force (2009), and a member of the congressionally- appointed Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (2009-2011). In May 2011, for his work in financial policy, Mr. Wallison received an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters from the University of Colorado.
Senior Attorney, Institute for Free Speech
Charles “Chip” Miller joined the Institute for Free Speech as a Senior Attorney in May 2023, where he has handled cases in the 1st, 5th, and 10th Circuits, District Courts in Maine, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Texas and Utah, and State Supreme Courts in Alaska and Connecticut, as well as amicus briefs in SCOTUS and the First Circuit. At IFS, Miller's work focuses on Campaign Finance, Donor Privacy, Political Speech and Freedom of the Press. Miller previously served as Ohio’s Deputy Attorney General, where he directed major litigation. Before joining the state AG’s office as General Counsel, he served as a judge for the First Appellate District of Ohio and had also served as a “visiting judge” on the Ohio Supreme Court. Prior to entering public service, Miller spent over 10 years at Keating, Muething & Klekamp, PLL as a litigation partner arguing cases before the Sixth Circuit and the Ohio Supreme Court.
Miller has extensive litigation and appellate experience and has spearheaded important regulatory matters. His previous work includes advancing innovative protections of free expression and competition in the digital sphere.
Miller is a graduate of Boston University College of Law and clerked for Justice Maureen O’Connor at the Ohio Supreme Court. Among other honors, Miller was selected to represent Boston University at the National First Amendment Moot Court.
Partner, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP
Francis J. Menton, Jr. is a partner in the Litigation Department and Co-Chair of the Business Litigation Practice Group of Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP in New York. Mr. Menton specializes in complex and technical commercial litigation, principally contract and securities claims. He has a nationwide trial practice, and has tried cases in state and federal courts including Colorado, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Puerto Rico, Texas, Virginia, and Washington.
Mr. Menton is the author of "New Opportunities for Defendants in Securities Class Actions," Engage (Fall 2007), "Can You Protect Yourself Against Identity Theft?" New York Law Journal (April 29, 2002), and "Top Ten Federal Government Efforts to Suppress Free Speech," Federalist Society Free Speech and Election Law News (Summer 2000, 1999, 1998). He also authored "Evaluating Claims Under The Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995," New York Law Journal (January 6, 1996).
Chief Program Officer, National Community Reinvestment Coalition
David Berenbaum serves as The National Community Reinvestment Coalition’s Chief Program Officer. David is responsible for implementing NCRC’s legislative, research, compliance, community lending, minority business and civil rights programs. He testified in 2007 before the House Financial Services Committee on solutions to the current foreclosure crisis in America and before the Senate Banking Committee hearing on solutions to the current sub-prime mortgage melt-down. His current national public policy and regulatory focus includes initiatives to expand CRA to reach all financial service providers, Home Mortgage Disclosure Act analysis, RESPA reform, enactment of a meaningful national responsible lending bill and related consumer protections. Mr. Berenbaum has achieved a national reputation as a civil rights expert and advocate. He attained national recognition for fair housing and related consumer protection advocacy and has appeared as an expert on numerous national news magazine shows – including Dateline NBC, 48 Hours, The CBS Evening News, Bloomberg, CNBC, CNN and others. Recently, his work documenting fair lending compliance issues by mortgage brokers through mystery shopping in six cities and concerning about appraisal valuation practices was reported on by syndicated real estate columnist Ken Harney in two articles.
Mr. Berenbaum is responsible for coordinating NCRC’s fair housing and fair lending compliance initiatives, which in 2008 will be relaunched under the historic name “National Neighbors" and the establishment of NCRC’s new CDFI, which is a component of it’s National Homeownership Sustainability Fund. David is also one of the founders of NCRC’s Center for Responsible Appraisals and Valuations (CRAV). The CRAV celebrates appraisal best practices in cooperation with it’s stake holders, who include lenders, securitizers, appraisers, real estate professionals and other public and private sector leaders.
President, Cass & Associates, PC
Ronald A. Cass is Dean Emeritus of Boston University School of Law (where he was Dean from 1990-2004), President of Cass & Associates, PC, former Vice-Chairman and Commissioner of the U.S. International Trade Commission, former faculty member at Boston University School of Law and the University of Virginia Law School, and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State. Dean Cass also sits as an arbitrator for commercial, international, and intellectual property rights disputes, and is a former United States member of the Panel of Conciliators of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. He is a member of the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States and has received seven presidential appointments, spanning Presidents Ronald Reagan to Donald J. Trump.
As a law professor, lecturer, and scholar, Dean Cass has been teaching and writing about a wide array of legal issues on topics such as administrative law and regulation, antitrust, constitutional law, communications, intellectual property, international trade, separation of powers, and legal process. He has published more than 160 scholarly books, chapters, articles, and papers, including a leading casebook on administrative law. Dean Cass has taught judges as well as students in schools of law, economics, business, and public policy and has held academic appointments in the United States, Europe, and Latin America.
In addition to his academic work, Dean Cass has participated in numerous important legal cases as an amicus, consultant, or expert, and has advised businesses, law firms, investment funds, and government agencies on a range of trade, antitrust, intellectual property, and regulatory issues. He has a broad range of affiliations with professional groups, and has received numerous honors, fellowships and awards.
Dean Cass is a graduate of the University of Virginia and the University of Chicago Law School.
Senior Fellow, Mises Institute
Alex J. Pollock is a Senior Fellow with the Mises Institute, providing thought and policy leadership on financial issues and the study of financial systems. His work includes cycles of booms and busts, financial crises with their political responses, housing finance, government-sponsored enterprises, risk and uncertainty, central banking, banking and financial regulation, corporate governance, retirement finance, student loans, and the politics of finance.
He previously served as the Principal Deputy Director of the Office of Financial Research in the U.S. Treasury Department 2019-2021. He was a Distinguished Senior Fellow with the R Street Institute 2015-2019 and 2021, and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, 2004-2015. Among the many aspects of his AEI work, he developed the One Page Mortgage Form to give borrowers in clear form the key information they need in order to know what they are committing themselves to. He was President and CEO of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago from 1991 to 2004. There he invented the Mortgage Partnership Finance program, which successfully created front-end mortgage credit risk sharing beginning in 1997. His decades of banking experience include being a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 1991.
Pollock was a director of the CME Group 2004-2019 and of Ascendium Education Group 1989-2019. He is a director and past-chairman of the Great Books Foundation and a past president of the International Union for Housing Finance.
He is the co-author of Surprised Again! - The COVID Crisis and the New Market Bubble (2022), and the author of Finance and Philosophy—Why We’re Always Surprised (2018) and Boom and Bust: Financial Cycles and Human Prosperity (2011), as well as numerous articles and Congressional testimony.
Pollock is a graduate of Williams College, the University of Chicago, and Princeton University.
His work is available on alexjpollock.com.
Wayne A. Abernathy, Wild Bells
Wayne A. Abernathy is a former U.S. Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions under President George W. Bush, receiving the Alexander Hamilton Award in recognition of his service. In that office he was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. Prior to his work at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy served as Staff Director of the Senate Banking Committee, under Chairman Phil Gramm.
Following his service at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy worked for 15 years on the staff of the American Bankers Association, as Executive Vice President for Financial Institutions Policy and Regulatory Affairs.
Previous experience with the Senate Banking Committee includes serving as Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Securities during 1995-1998. From 1989 until 1994, Mr. Abernathy was a Republican economist for the committee. He previously worked as a senior legislative assistant for Senator Gramm during 1987-1989 and as an economist for the Banking Committee’s Subcommittee on International Finance and Monetary Policy during 1981-1986, under Chairman Jake Garn.
Mr. Abernathy earned his bachelor’s degree in International Studies from The Johns Hopkins University in 1978. In 1980, he received a master’s degree in International Studies from the School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University.
Professor of Law and Public Finance, NSU Florida Shepard Broad College of Law
Tim Canova is a Professor of Law and Public Finance at the NSU Shepard Broad College of Law, with broad experience in law teaching, private practice, and public policy. He teaches Constitutional Law II: First Amendment Law, Corporations, Business Entities, Regulation of Financial Institutions, and a Seminar on Law, Finance, and Markets at Nova. He previously taught at the Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of Law in Orange, California, where he served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and the inaugural Betty Hutton Williams Professor of International Economic Law. He was first granted tenure at the University of New Mexico School of Law and he has taught as a visitor at the University of Arizona and the University of Miami.
Canova's work crosses the disciplines of law, public finance, history, and economics. He has been a leading critic of private central banks, including the Federal Reserve. His work has been published in more than two dozen book chapters and articles in the U.S. and overseas, including in the Oxford University Press, Edward Elgar Publishing, Harvard Law & Policy Review, American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Brooklyn Law Review, Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy, and UC Davis Law Review. Canova was an early critic of financial deregulation and the Federal Reserve under Alan Greenspan. In the 1980s, he wrote critically of the federal bailout of Continental Illinois, the nation’s seventh largest commercial bank, and the collapse of the savings & loan industry. In the 1990s, prior to the Asian currency contagion, he argued against the International Monetary Fund’s capital account liberalization program. Throughout the Bush administration, he warned of an impending crisis in the bubble economy. Following the 2008 financial collapse, he lectured and published widely on the causes and consequences of the economic and financial crisis. In 2011, Canova was appointed by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to serve on an Advisory Committee on Federal Reserve Reform with leading economists, including Jeffrey Sachs, Robert Reich, James Galbraith, and Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz.
Canova also writes and advocates in the areas of campaign finance and election reform, a research agenda informed by his 2016 campaign challenging the then chair of the Democratic National Committee for her U.S. House of Representatives seat in a hotly contested election. Canova’s campaign went viral, raising $3.8 million from 209,000 individual donations and setting a record at the time for the highest percentage (76%) of small online donations for any campaign for federal office. The election results were marred by evidence of statistical anomalies, allegations of electronic voting irregularities, and an order by Florida’s 17th Judicial Circuit Court finding that the Broward County Elections Supervisor had illegally destroyed every ballot cast. In 2019, Canova testified to the Florida Advisory Committee of the United States Civil Rights Commission about the systematic electronic disenfranchisement of voters in Florida elections.
Canova received his A.B. degree from Franklin and Marshall College and his J.D. degree, cum laude, from the Georgetown University Law Center. He has a master’s diploma in graduate legal studies from the University of Stockholm where he was a Swedish Institute Visiting Scholar. He previously served as a legislative assistant to the late U.S. Senator Paul E. Tsongas and practiced law in New York City with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Mudge Rose Guthrie Alexander & Ferdon.
Featured Article entitled “Central Bank Independence as Agency Capture: A Review of the Empirical Literature, Banking & Financial Services Policy Report 30:11 (Nov. 2011).
Principal, Ely & Company, Inc.
Bert Ely has specialized in deposit insurance and banking structure issues since 1981. In 1986, he became an early predictor of the S&L crisis and a taxpayer bailout of the FSLIC. In 1991, he was the first person to correctly predict the non-crisis in commercial banking; in 1992, he predicted an eventual taxpayer bailout of the Japanese banking system.
Bert continuously monitors conditions in the banking and S&L industries, monetary policy, and the growing federalization of credit risk. He has helped to draft legislation to enact the cross-guarantee concept for privatizing banking regulation and its related deposit insurance and systemic risks. He has testified on numerous occasions before congressional committees on banking issues and he often speaks on these matters to bankers and others.
Bert first established his consulting practice in 1972. Before that, he was the chief financial officer of a public company, a consultant with Touche, Ross & Company, and an auditor with Ernst & Ernst. He received his MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1968 and his Bachelor's degree in economics in 1964 from Case Western Reserve University.
Wayne A. Abernathy, Wild Bells
Wayne A. Abernathy is a former U.S. Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions under President George W. Bush, receiving the Alexander Hamilton Award in recognition of his service. In that office he was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. Prior to his work at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy served as Staff Director of the Senate Banking Committee, under Chairman Phil Gramm.
Following his service at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy worked for 15 years on the staff of the American Bankers Association, as Executive Vice President for Financial Institutions Policy and Regulatory Affairs.
Previous experience with the Senate Banking Committee includes serving as Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Securities during 1995-1998. From 1989 until 1994, Mr. Abernathy was a Republican economist for the committee. He previously worked as a senior legislative assistant for Senator Gramm during 1987-1989 and as an economist for the Banking Committee’s Subcommittee on International Finance and Monetary Policy during 1981-1986, under Chairman Jake Garn.
Mr. Abernathy earned his bachelor’s degree in International Studies from The Johns Hopkins University in 1978. In 1980, he received a master’s degree in International Studies from the School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University.
Managing Parter, Federal Financial Analytics
Principal, Ely & Company, Inc.
Bert Ely has specialized in deposit insurance and banking structure issues since 1981. In 1986, he became an early predictor of the S&L crisis and a taxpayer bailout of the FSLIC. In 1991, he was the first person to correctly predict the non-crisis in commercial banking; in 1992, he predicted an eventual taxpayer bailout of the Japanese banking system.
Bert continuously monitors conditions in the banking and S&L industries, monetary policy, and the growing federalization of credit risk. He has helped to draft legislation to enact the cross-guarantee concept for privatizing banking regulation and its related deposit insurance and systemic risks. He has testified on numerous occasions before congressional committees on banking issues and he often speaks on these matters to bankers and others.
Bert first established his consulting practice in 1972. Before that, he was the chief financial officer of a public company, a consultant with Touche, Ross & Company, and an auditor with Ernst & Ernst. He received his MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1968 and his Bachelor's degree in economics in 1964 from Case Western Reserve University.
Senior Attorney, Institute for Free Speech
Charles “Chip” Miller joined the Institute for Free Speech as a Senior Attorney in May 2023, where he has handled cases in the 1st, 5th, and 10th Circuits, District Courts in Maine, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Texas and Utah, and State Supreme Courts in Alaska and Connecticut, as well as amicus briefs in SCOTUS and the First Circuit. At IFS, Miller's work focuses on Campaign Finance, Donor Privacy, Political Speech and Freedom of the Press. Miller previously served as Ohio’s Deputy Attorney General, where he directed major litigation. Before joining the state AG’s office as General Counsel, he served as a judge for the First Appellate District of Ohio and had also served as a “visiting judge” on the Ohio Supreme Court. Prior to entering public service, Miller spent over 10 years at Keating, Muething & Klekamp, PLL as a litigation partner arguing cases before the Sixth Circuit and the Ohio Supreme Court.
Miller has extensive litigation and appellate experience and has spearheaded important regulatory matters. His previous work includes advancing innovative protections of free expression and competition in the digital sphere.
Miller is a graduate of Boston University College of Law and clerked for Justice Maureen O’Connor at the Ohio Supreme Court. Among other honors, Miller was selected to represent Boston University at the National First Amendment Moot Court.
Senior Fellow, Arthur F. Burns Fellow in Financial Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute
Peter J. Wallison holds the Arthur F. Burns Chair in Financial Policy Studies and is co-director of AEI’s program on Financial Policy Studies. Prior to joining AEI, he practiced banking, corporate and financial law at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, D.C., and New York. Mr. Wallison has held a number of government positions. From June 1981 to January 1985, he was General Counsel of the United States Treasury Department, where he had a significant role in the development of the Reagan Administration's proposals for deregulation in the financial services industry. During 1986 and 1987, Mr. Wallison was White House counsel to President Ronald Reagan, and between 1972 and 1976, he served first as Special Assistant to New York's Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller and, subsequently, as counsel to Mr. Rockefeller as vice president of the United States.
Mr. Wallison was admitted to practice before the courts of New York and the District of Columbia, and is retired from practice in New York. He continues to be a member of the District of Columbia Bar Association. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College in 1963 and law degree from Harvard Law School in 1966.
Mr. Wallison is the author of Ronald Reagan: The Power of Conviction and the Success of His Presidency, published in December 2002 by Westview Press. On campaign finance, he is the author (with Joel Gora) of Better Parties, Better Government, (AEI Press 2009). On financial or regulatory matters, he is the author of Back From the Brink, a proposal for a private deposit insurance system, and co-author of Nationalizing Mortgage Risk: The Growth of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; The GAAP Gap: Corporate Disclosure in the Internet Age; Competitive Equity: A Better Way to Organize Mutual Funds; Bad History, Worse Policy: How a False Narrative about the Financial Crisis Led to the Dodd-Frank Act (AEI Press 2013); and Hidden In Plain Sight: What Caused the World’s Worst Financial Crisis and Why it Could Happen Again (Encounter Books 2015). His most recent book is Judicial Fortitude: The Last Chance to Rein in the Administrative State, published by Encounter Books in October 2018.
He testifies frequently before committees of Congress, and is a frequent contributor to the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal and other print and online journals. He has also been a speaker at many conferences on financial services, housing, the causes of the financial crisis, the Dodd-Frank Act, accounting, and corporate governance, and was a member of the Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee between 1995 and 2015. He was a member of the SEC Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting (2008), co-Chair of the Pew Financial Reform Task Force (2009), and a member of the congressionally- appointed Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (2009-2011). In May 2011, for his work in financial policy, Mr. Wallison received an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters from the University of Colorado.
The Obama Administration’s Proposed New Consumer Regulator (CFPA)
Wayne A. Abernathy
Brought to you by the Financial Services & E-Commerce Practice Group The Obama Administration has proposed creation...
Panel I: How Did We Get into the Mess We Are in Today?
Wayne A. Abernathy, Timothy Canova, James Carr, Bert Ely, Craig L. Hymowitz
Presentation by Bert Ely of a paper titled: "Bad Rules Produce Bad Outcomes: Underlying Public Policy Causes...
Panel II: Reprivatizing Credit Risk: Where Do We Go From Here?
The Financial Services Bailout
Washington, DCPanel I: How Did We Get into the Mess We Are in Today?
The Financial Services Bailout
Washington, DCThe Ideal Basel
Wayne A. Abernathy, Keith R. Fisher, Karen Shaw Petrou, Michael Roster, Charles Taylor
What are the alternatives for resolving the multiple Basel imbroglios? How can any potential adverse...
A Basel Backgrounder
Bert Ely, George E. French, Peter J. Wallison, Gary Wilhite, Charles M. Miller
Is an international bank capital standard constitutional in the U.S. without Senate ratification as if...
The Ideal Basel
The Basel Risk-Based Capital Standards: Are they Workable?
Washington, DCA Basel Backgrounder
The Basel Risk-Based Capital Standards: Are they Workable?
Washington, DCShould the Federal Government Backstop Insurance Industry Terrorism Coverage?
Judyth W. Pendell, Warren B. Azano
Judyth W. Pendell, Director, Center for Legal Policy, Manhattan InstituteWarren B. Azano, Vice President, Hartford...
The Terrorism Threat to Insurance Markets
Francis J. Menton
Francis J. Menton, Jr. **The Federalist Society takes no position on particular legal or public...