With God as our witness we told you so! On Friday, the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility chastised companies for failing to heed its warnings against insufficient transparency. The center also warned the government against doling out golden parachutes on judgment day.  The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, a 37-year-old alliance comprised of nearly 300 religious institutional investors, has been trying to be the angel on the market's shoulder for the past few years, seeking to make companies more socially and environmentally responsible by sponsoring shareholder resolutions and other initiatives. It said it had warned the very institutions that are feeling the heat now that unless they infused their dealings with much-needed transparency, it would take more than a wing and a prayer to save them.  The religious group did its best to make investors feel guilty for not cleaning up their act.  "Had the eerily prescient advice of faith-based investors been heeded, every evidence suggests that it would have prevented, or at the very least diminished, the impact of this meltdown," said the Rev. Seamus Finn. According to Finn, the center's investors addressed the need for increased disclosure of liabilities and better risk assessment and monitoring. Additionally, investors harped on the dangers of subprime and predatory lending practices.  The coalition, which wields $100.0 billion in invested capital, advised the government on how to mend financial institutions' greedy ways. Most importantly, the center warned against sending taxpayers the tab for Wall Street's bailout. Ensure "that the consequences of the response do not impose additional burdens on the marginalized and poorest who are at the periphery of the workings of financial markets," the center said, adding that credibility must be restored to financial markets "at the lowest possible cost to the taxpayers."
Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility says if Wall Street had listened to it before, it wouldn't be in such dire straits.