His views on financial regulation have “evolved” since he
was with Treasury, in part because the financial turmoil exposed
a lack of transparency in the market, he said.
Still, Gensler bristles at the idea that he’s a recent
convert to regulation. He helped former Senator Paul Sarbanes
with the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act toughening corporate governance
and accounting rules, he said, and worked with Democratic
Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts in the 1990s on
strengthening consumer financial privacy protections.
He co-wrote a 2002 book, “The Great Mutual Fund Trap: An
Investment Recovery Plan,” that recommends index-fund investing
to avoid the “mistake of trusting the experts” who try to
outperform the market. One of those experts is Gensler’s
identical twin brother, Robert, a portfolio manager at
Baltimore-based T. Rowe Price Group Inc.
Gensler had at least $15.5 million in stocks, bonds and
index funds, according to a 2008 financial disclosure form filed
with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. He can take on the
banks, he said, because they are part of his past, not his
future.
“I don’t see myself going back to Wall Street,” he said.
“That’s very liberating.”

Dean Starkman writes and edits The Audit. He is CJR's Kingsford Capital Fellow.