By Eliot Spitzer, former governor of New York who blogs for Slate.com and guest posts on New Deal 2.0, and Josh Rosner, the managing director of an independent financial services research firm It doesn’t take a rocket scientist — and certainly not an accountant — to deduce one thing from the Lehman scandal. The misleading […]
Read more...The so-called Valukas report on the Lehman bankruptcy has put a harsh light on the final months of the floundering firm and the regulators who stepped up their oversight, in particular, the New York Fed. Some of the NY Fed’s moves have been so indefensible as to in and of themselves warrant full bore investigation. […]
Read more...An interesting right/left conversation. It’s refreshing to see reasoned discussion across ideological lines.
Read more...So which theory is it: stunning bureaucratic incompetence, wishful thinking and denial (a better gloss on theory #1) or a cover up? Or a combination of the above? No matter which theory or theories you subscribe to, the continuing revelations of how the SEC and perhaps more important, the New York Fed conducted themselves in […]
Read more...Hat tip reader Carrick. Enjoy! The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c In Dodd We Trust www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform
Read more...The Lehman Examiner’s report gives an unintentionally damning portrayal, both of the the structure of financial regulation in the US and how regulators failed to use the powers they had effectively. Section III.A.6: Government shows that even with its imperfect grasp of the situation, the authorities recognized Lehman had a large negative net worth. Yet […]
Read more...By L. Randall Wray, a Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City who writes at New Economic Perspectives Just when you thought that nothing could stink more than Timothy Geithner’s handling of the AIG bailout, a new report details how Geithner’s New York Fed allowed Lehman Brothers to use an accounting gimmick to […]
Read more...A reader wrote to tell me his firm had been shown transactions at the end of 2007 from an investment bank (not Lehman) that he was confident were to tart up its balance sheet. This confirms the hardly shocking idea that window dressing was not limited to Lehman: Around Dec 2007 bank I work for […]
Read more...By Frank Partnoy, Professor of Law and Finance University of San Diego School of Law and author of Fiasco, Infectious Greed, and The Match King The buzz on the Lehman bankruptcy examiner’s report has focused on Repo 105, for good reason. That scheme is one powerful example of how the balance sheets of major Wall […]
Read more...I chatted at the Book Salon on FireDogLake on Saturday (yes I screwed up completely in not notifying Naked Capitalism readers). The conversation was hosted by masaccio and led to a wide ranging discussion. The chat started with his summary of the book: Yves Smith brings the same clear and concise writing to ECONned: How […]
Read more...From the December 2009 issue of The Baffler (no online version of this article available). For those not familiar with The Baffler, this is the revival of a magazine of business and culture edited by Thomas Frank that had previously been published from 1988 to 2007. This issue was called “Margin Call” and included articles […]
Read more...By Tim Duncan, Chairman of American Business Leaders for Financial Reform Financial regulatory reform was starting to feel a lot like a political version of the movie Groundhog Day. Like Bill Murray’s character in the movie – forced inexplicably to live the same day over and over until he learned from his mistakes – the […]
Read more...Quite a few observers, including this blogger, have been stunned and frustrated at the refusal to investigate what was almost certain accounting fraud at Lehman. Despite the bankruptcy administrator’s effort to blame the gaping hole in Lehman’s balance sheet on its disorderly collapse, the idea that the firm, which was by its own accounts solvent, […]
Read more...A war of words has broken out between the Treasury Department and the EU over proposed EU financial services regulations. The first salvo in this dispute occurred earlier this week, when, as reported in the Guardian, American banks were excluded from the sovereign bond market, which means new issues (they obviously cannot be prohibited from […]
Read more...One of the bizarre things that occurs whenever particular high profile slots are up for grabs is that the discussion rapidly devolves into which candidate A Lot of People Have Heard Of should get it, rather than focusing on selection criteria (which is how most managers go about filling jobs). In addition, some of the […]
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