Category Archives: Banking industry

Marshall Auerback: Bank of Canada Governor is Wrong on Too Big To Fail and Wrong on Canada’s Banking System

Yves here. It was very telling, and disappointing, to find out that the Governor of the Bank of England in waiting, Mark Carney, has been critical of the ideas of Andrew Haldane, the executive director of financial stability of the Bank. Haldane has the goods on major banks, and has come up with both colorful and insightful critiques as well as creative solutions. It now becomes clear why George Osborne made this surprising pick: Carney sees nothing wrong with large, universal banks, while the departing Governor, Mervyn King, Haldane, and the head of the soon-to-be-disbanded FSA, Adair Turner, were unified in their desire to cut the mega-banks down to size.

By Marshall Auerback, a portfolio strategist, fellow with the Economists for Peace and Security, and a research associate for the Levy Institute. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives

As a Canadian, perhaps I should feel a surge of patriotic pride now that Mark Carney has been designated the new head of the Bank of England – quite a step up for the current governor of the Bank of Canada. That said, his recent attack on the Bank of England’s Andy Haldane in a Euromoney interview last month, does give one some cause for concern, particularly as it evinces the usual complacency that most Canadians seem to feel about the basic soundness of their own banking system, which essentially upholds the universal banking model as a viable one.

The 0.1% Circles the Wagons: Buffett Pumps for Dimon as Treasury Secretary

Well, given that our current Treasury secretary was forgiven for being a tax cheat (Turbo Timmy never did settle up for his underpaid taxes that were beyond the IRS statute of limitations), there is a certain logic in upping the ante with his replacement. Having a Treasury secretary who is a slam-dunk case for criminal Sarbanes-Oxley violations (see here and here) as well as running a bank where the auditors signaled the worst level of accounting failure short of signaling “going concern” worries is par for the course for the ever-risinng level of corruption among what passes for our elites.

Mirabile Dictu! Regulators Using Trading Scandals to Push for Tougher Capital Requirements

Most news reports on financial regulatory reform hew to a few storylines: banks pushing back in private and winning on diluting regulatory reform; banks attributing lousy profits to new regulations (with a notable lack of proof of this convenient blame-shifting); bank regulators demonstrating capture, corruption and incompetence (which even though true to a fair degree is played up by industry incumbents to support the notion that regulation is futile).

So it’s refreshing to see a contrasting storyline….

Yes, Virginia, the IRS Does Not Treat the Connected Like the Rest of Us (REMIC Edition)

We’ve written at some length about the failure of the IRS to go after what look like slam-dunk violations of the rules governing the tax treatment of mortgage-backed securities. Apparently the noise has been made about the failure to pursue REMIC violations, the latest by two law professors in a journal article, has roused the IRS from its official somnolence.

Justice in America: Systematic Document Forgery and Fabrication Yield One Criminal Plea Bargain

This admission of guilt by Lorraine Brown of Lender Processing Services subsidiary DocX for wire and mail fraud on the federal level and fraudulent and forged document filings in Missouri now allows the Obama Administration to claim it has sent another “executive” to jail.

Mortgage Settlement Monitor “Progress” Report Gooses Numbers to Hide Lack of Real Relief to Homeowners

Today, the settlement monitor Joseph Smith released another PR piece, um, progress report.

Parking Basel: A Case Study of How Banks Stymie Regulatory Reform

Basel III’s getting nowhere in the US.

Greenspan’s Switch to Debt Scaremongering

Stephanie Kelton provides two video clips to underscore the point that until quite recently, Greenspan made the point that MMT types do: that the US as a currency issuer, can always pay its debts.

Quelle Surprise! New York Fed Chair Dudley Confirms that TBTF Lives, Big Firms Still Can’t Be Resolved

The New York Fed’s William Dudley gave a surprisingly candid, meaning not positive, assessment of the state of the Too Big to Fail problem in a speech yesterday at the Clearing House’s Second Annual Business Meeting and Conference. From the text of his speech (hat tip Richard Smith):

Quelle Surprise! HUD and Obama Whoppers About Mortgage Settlement, FHA Finances, Housing Market Remedies Coming Home to Roost

We took a very dim view of some of the Administration’s less-than-credible claims about its much-touted backdoor bank bailout, which was more popularly known as the mortgage settlement. And a rash of news reports tonight have caught the Administration out in its deceptions. From a March post, Memo to Shaun Donovan: Your Nose is Getting So Long You Need to Get a Hacksaw:

Modern Money & Public Purpose: Yanis Varoufakis and Marshall Auerback on the Eurozone Crisis

One of the reasons the public knows little about economics is that most economists are lousy speakers. Part of that is their reliance on jargon, which is often shamanistic, designed to obscure rather than communicate. But the other reason is that a lot of economists don’t bother to try to be engaging.

The remarks by Yanis Varoufakis and Marshall Auerback are informative and lively, if ultimately pretty grim. The comments at YouTube are extremely positive.

Bankers Beginning to Look a Smidge Desperate: Goldman Looking for Technology Magic Bullets to Fix its Cost Problem

Now that Wall Street blew up the global economy in its search for fun and profit, it is finally having to eat its own cooking in the form of more modest profits. Of course, the slightly chastened Masters of the Universe seem constitutionally unable to recognize that their own actions might have something to do with the fix they are in.

Michael Olenick: Schadenfreude Alert – Banks Paying Extortionate Fees for Foreclosure Reviews

By Michael Olenick, a regular contributor on Naked Capitalism. You can follow him on Twitter at @michael_olenick

Every time it appears that the OCC foreclosure reviews have hit bottom they sink further into the morass.