The Wall Street Journal’s Damien Paletta has an interesting, largely positive profile of Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair. Bair has been tasked with extraordinary responsibilities: guaranteeing consumer bank deposits and new debt issues by companies and providing unlimited deposit insurance.

Bair has been going along with the recent decisions by Treasury Sec. Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke about partly nationalizing the banks. But where she differs is the belief that the federal govt. must be doing more to help homeowners who face foreclosure. Bair has criticized Paulson et. al for helping Wall Street without acting with the same urgency to restructure awful mortgages.

Disastrous times for the economy conversely mean that it’s a heady time to run the FDIC. The agency usually typifies bureaucratic anonymity, but as it was during the savings and loan crisis, the FDR-created entity finds itself prominent and powerful.-MB

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