Oklahomans Ready for Financial Regulation

By Dave Jordan, NEWS 9

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Talk of financial regulation is getting high praise from members of Oklahoma's business community. Leaders say we need to learn from the events of last year that nearly brought Wall Street to its knees.

Even though Oklahoma's economy is stronger than most states, the effect of last year's financial crisis could still be felt.

It may be hard to believe it was one year ago that Lehman Brothers collapsed, nearly taking Wall Street with it. Wild swings in the market fueled by little consumer confidence and an election year did nothing to calm fears. But all of that appears to be behind us.

"In the second quarter and here now in the third quarter, and we seem to have gotten to a place where we'll level out," CEO of Capitol West Securities Keith Geary said.

This fall, Capital West will open for trading on the New York Stock Exchange. It will be the only state-based exchanged traded fund, or ETF, in the country on the NYSE.

"There were some things that need to be changed," Geary said. "There were some things that weren't done properly."

President Obama chose today, the anniversary of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, to make his case for tighter market regulation. Vince Orza, dean of OCU's Meinders School of Business believes the markets could benefit from the additional oversight, but the goal has to be clear.

"It shouldn't be regulation just for sake of regulation and it certainly can't be political in nature," Orza said. "It should be business and pragmatic."

Orza believes there's plenty of blame to go around.

"It's not just the banks that were at fault here, it's not just the lenders who were at fault here, it's a lot of us as consumers who bought more house than we can afford, could afford, the car payments, overcharged on our credit cards," Orza said.

Oklahoma didn't see the record bankruptcy filing or the huge loss of homes that plagued most states, largely because of our low cost of living and strong energy sector. But in the end no one is immune from an economic downturn, which is why Geary says Wall Street needs to clear up what he calls "gray areas."

"If we could just color in some of those gray areas, and get everyone to operate a little more above board, we're all going to be that much better," Geary said.

Some of those gray areas would include widely-used accounting practices that allow companies to hide losses making the company appear more valuable than it really is.

Orza says any financial market reform needs to be bipartisan and include members of the business community.