Muriel Siebert: After Lehman, Investors Deserve Better

When Muriel Siebert stopped by DailyFinance's offices, we had a unique opportunity to get her thoughts on banking reform two years after the downfall of Lehman Brothers. (See that video here.) But Siebert, who also goes by the nickname Mickie, has long been an advocate for the individual investor and says that there is much to be done so that investors can make educated investments.

A former Superintendent of Banks in the State of New York, the first woman to buy a seat on the NYSE, one of the earliest creators of a discount brokerage firm, and a former money manager, Siebert has used her position to call for greater transparency so that investors have the same access to information as big institutions.

Stocks: Still a Good Long-Term Investment

"We have to have certain rules so that the public can see what they are buying," she says. For example, Siebert says balance sheets of the banks should be truthful - and today they aren't.

Despite this, Siebert says that the economic turmoil has created terrific values in stocks such as General Electric (GE) and Pfizer (PFE) . "The U.S. companies have more cash than they have ever had. They are either declaring or raising dividends, buying back their own stock or sitting on cash looking for an acquisition, and that is amazing."

For more from the First Woman of Finance, see the video below: