This Week in ESG and Impact Investing

Ailing ShoreBank Seeks the Aid of an Ailing State American Banker | Wednesday, January 27, 2010 By Robert Barba With dwindling capital and mounting losses, ShoreBank Corp. in Chicago is seeking a bailout from the state of Illinois. Executives of the $2.5 billion-asset community development bank met with the Illinois Finance Authority and regulators earlier this month to discuss raising as much as $50 million through a bond deal, according to local media reports. ShoreBank executives are playing up its history of community service in trying to secure a lifeline from the state. Banking experts say such help is conceivable, as ShoreBank's inception stems from the civil rights movement in the 1960s and it has supported struggling Chicago neighborhoods. Yet state assistance could have unintended consequences - especially given Illinois' own troubled fiscal picture. "It deserves a look, because from a historical standpoint, it is part of the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

The First Public Hearing of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was held on January 13, 2010 at the Longworth House Office Building in Washington, DC. "The Commission..has been given a mission to examine the causes of the financial crisis and to report findings to the Congress, the President, and the American people." According to the New York Times , "The heads of Wall Street’s largest banks faced skeptical questions on Wednesday about executive pay and the failures of regulation from the bipartisan commission established to examine the causes of the biggest downturn since the Depression. Tensions flared as commission members retraced the events leading to the near-collapse of the financial system in 2008 and pressed bankers on whether they or their employees had acted unethically." This is inaccurate. There were no skeptical questions. There was no tension. No one pressed the bankers on anything. They lied at will, without fear of being contradicted. It was a