China’s Stock Market Collapse
Those who are looking only at Greece and the crazy behaviour of the European Union may well be looking in the wrong direction to identify the next big crisis as it comes.
Read more...Category Archives: Banana republic
60% of the CEOs of America’s “Great Health Systems” Have No Educational Background in Health Care
Why having generic managers run health systems is a bad idea.
Read more...New York Department of Financial Services Slams Bank Fixer Promontory Group, Hitting it in Its Profits and Reputation
A decision by the New York State Department of Financial Services appears to be finally crimping the wings of this powerfully placed bank fixer. Promontory is being denied access to information that effectively locks it out of a large swathe of consulting work that is important to its business.
Read more...Libor Trader Sentenced to 14 Years for Market Manipulation. So What About His Bosses?
While it’s gratifying to see former UBS trader Tom Hayes go to jail for large-scale Libor bid rigging, his bosses had to have known what he was up to. So when will we see their indictments?
Read more...Meet the Hedge Funders and Billionaires Who Pillage Under the Shield of Philanthropy
For every dollar these billionaires give, they take 44 from the rest of us.
Read more...Another Private Equity Scam – Tax Receivable Agreements
As one tax expert put it, “Private equity is a tax gimmick with an acquisition attached.” We’re going to discuss a very big tax gimmick that virtually no private equity investors seem to be aware of. The failure of private equity general partners to publicize a tax scheme that on paper should benefit their limited […]
Read more...Republican Rank-and-File Lines Up Against Financial Regulation
Let us not kid ourselves that the Democratic party is also for the most part out to gut financial regulation.
The only reason that there is more space between Congressional Republicans and Democrats than usual is the pro-business, pro-bank “blue dog” wing of the Democratic party has gotten deservedly slaughtered in the last two Congressional elections for selling out what used to be the American middle class. So the more progressive-minded survivors are a bigger faction on a relative basis than they once were.
This Real News Network interview with Bill Black covers both a critical slice of the history of financial regulations (or more accurately, its rollback) as well as some of the current dynamics.
Read more...Dealing With Mass Killings in America: Funding Our Children, Not Our Wars
As mass killings become more common in the US, law enforcement agents fixate on and unduly publicize cases with jihadist links. As this post describes, that serves as an excuse for even more intensive surveillance.
Yet as Mark Ames described in one of the first works on these rampages, in his book “Going Postal,” there were no obvious similarities among the perps. They weren’t all, or even often, isolated losers. They did not typically come from broken homes. They were generally of above average intelligence. Aside from being disproportionately male, the other common thread was that they had been bullied.
If Ames’ observations still hold true, the lack of distinctive demographic or behavioral predictors of those who go on rampages means that heightened surveillance is at best another form of security theater, and at worst an excuse for Stasi-like dossier-gethering.
Read more...The Ideology of the S&P Threat to Downgrade Brazil to Junk
Why you should look hard at the rationales and motives of ratings agencies like S&P in giving sovereign debt downgrades.
Read more...Lies, Damned Lies, and Greek Statistics
A detailed account of the long and tortured history of budget fakery in Greece and how it is has been aggressively defended by successive Greek governments. A tidbit from the post: one section is labeled “When revising wrong statistics is treason.”
Read more...How Big Corporations Are Starving Public Schools of Billions of Dollars
How big corporate tax avoidance hurts local schools.
Read more...China’s Stock Market Falling Off a Cliff: Why, and Why Care?
What explains the turmoil in Chinese stock markets, and what does it mean for the rest of the world?
Read more...Greece Negotiations Already Starting to Look Wobbly
Silly me! I thought that given that the Greek government had prostrated itself and had complied with the creditor demand to pass legislation double-plus quickly or else, that the worst of the hurdles to getting the third bailout passed had been surmounted.
I should know better than that.
Read more...The Yellen Subsidy: Fed Chair Pumps for Keeping Financiers Fat Over Filling Potholes
Yellen tries conning journalists and the Great Unwashed Public in her defense of preserving the current level of Fed dividends to banks.
Read more...Comparison of Greek and English Version of Kathimerini Scoop on Varoufakis Parallel Currency Plan
Filling in some details on a bombshell report about a call that Varoufakis had with hedge fund managers about a parallel currency.
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