A critical eye on the nation's banking crisis

One of the people with the best vantage points on the banking crisis takes a harsh view of some of the biggest actors in the drama.

Sheila Bair, former chairwoman of the FDIC and author of "Bull by the Horns," is in town to deliver the keynote address to the Ethical Leadership Forum at St. Mary's University Hendrickson Institute.

"Bair has become a remarkably blunt critic of the financial industry since leaving her post as head of the FDIC," wrote Sheelah Kolhatkar of BloombergBusinessweek. "In columns for Fortune, she argued that giant asset management firm BlackRock (BLK) might be 'too big to fail,' Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac (FMCC) should be abolished, and that it might take further financial crisis to finally teach Wall Street how to behave."

She continued:

In her 2012 book, Bull by the Horns: Fighting to Save Main Street from Wall Street and Wall Street from Itself, it became evident within the first few pages that Bair would be taking the opportunity to share her feelings with little restraint: "[Vikram] Pandit looked nervous, and no wonder," she writes in her prologue, referring to the former head of Citigroup. "More than any other institution represented in that room, his bank was in trouble. Frankly, I doubted that he was up to the job."

With the perspective of one who was on the front lines of the financial crisis, Bair joins The Daily Circuit to discuss whether the country has truly navigated the recession and other modern concerns that financial systems face.