Beason: Tar Heel of the Week

Don Beason was Tar Heel of the Week in 1980.

At the time, he was president of the N.C. Savings Guaranty Corp., a nonprofit quasi-public company that insured deposits at savings and loans and credit unions.

At the time of the Dec. 7 article, the federal government had just begun deregulating the financial industry, phasing out restrictions on loans by S&Ls, among other things.

In the article, Beason predicted that the Savings Guaranty would insure more than half of the S&Ls and credit unions, and the rest would go to the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp.

Beason described himself as "a true free-market person" who supported deregulation.

Many of the S&Ls overextended themselves and defaulted in the following years, forcing the federal government to repay depositors, at a cost of billions of dollars.