Vernon P. "Vern" McKinley, born in East Chicago, Indiana advises governments on financial sector policy and legal issues.
He is the co-author with the Wall Street Journal's James Freeman of Borrowed Time: Two Centuries of Booms, Busts and Bailouts at Citi published by HarperCollins in 2018.
Since 1999 he has applied his expertise as a legal advisor and regulatory policy expert to work as an advisor to governments on financial sector issues in the U.S., China, Nigeria, Indonesia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, Latvia, the Philippines, Kuwait, West Bank, Yugoslavia (now Montenegro), Kenya, the Bahamas, the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Barbados, Grenada, Belize, Guyana, Turks and Caicos Islands, Dominica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia, Mozambique, Belarus, Moldova, Morocco, South Sudan, Libya, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Armenia, Kosovo, Tajikistan, Nepal and Myanmar.
He has applied his skeptical approach of the need for the bailouts to the narrative of the lingering status of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, financial institution runs, the tenure of departed FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair, the pending legacies of Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Geithner and Dodd-Frank reforms.
[28][29][30] Another case against the FDIC seeking documents on Citigroup, Bank of America and the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program was sent back to the agency to supplement its responses.
[34] More recently, McKinley has begun litigation to support his work on his second book to obtain records on the solvency of Citibank and the contemplation of placing the bank under FDIC receivership during 2008.
[35] McKinley has been credited with correctly predicting in 1997 that the structure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would one day lead to the meltdown of the two institutions.