Well, because he is a man of probity and is writing in the UK, where the standards for libel are much lower than in the US, former Barclays CEO Martin Taylor does not use the F (fraud) word, but that is precisely the behavior he describes. I know it is fashionable to depict the investment […]
Read more...Senator Jim Bunning gave a long, detailed, specific, and very good list of questions to Fed chair Ben Bernanke, and Bunning has posted the resulting Q&A on his website. I find this a pretty remarkable document. While a certain amount of bureaucratic jousting is to be expected (ie, there is a level of artful dodging […]
Read more...This is a guest post by Edward Harrison. There has been quite a lot of to-do about President Obama’s fat cat remarks and his meeting with bankers exhorting them to lend (which some attended via conference call only, ouch). Let me tie these events in with a few other themes into a comprehensive picture of […]
Read more...Are we supposed to take this posturing seriously? The media is now peddling more and more banker-favoring narratives with a straight face. The Columbia Journalism Review described one last week, how a little Goldman Kabuki theater to appease the peasants was incorrectly depicted as a serious move: …the press way overplays what is essentially a […]
Read more...A provocative report by the New Economics Foundation has made an effort to put a price tag on the broader costs and benefits of various types of work. As quoted in the Financial Times (hat tip Swedish Lex), the leader of this effort put it: Pay levels often don’t reflect the true value that is […]
Read more...I’m curious to get reader views on this one, since even the normally jaundiced Reuters noted in its coverage that the 11th hour bailout was “the least expected of all options Dubai had on the table.” Abu Dhabi had made it sound as if it would help, but that it also was going to extract […]
Read more...By L. Randall Wray is a professor of economics and research director of the Center for Full Employment and Price Stability at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and writes for New Deal 2.0 Congress is nearing completion of its financial reform bill HR 4173 (Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009), which appears […]
Read more...Tall Paul is my hero. I would go further than he did in a speech in Sussex. The case can made that financial innovation of the OTC derivatives variety, which has mushroomed from 1992 onward, has been at best a wealth transfer device from the real economy to the financial economy, and has probably exacted […]
Read more...The New York Times has a generally solid piece. “Debt Raters Avoid Overhaul After Crisis,” by David Segal, on how pretty much nothing meaningful is being done to reform the rating agencies. That of course is particularly disturbing since there are only three agencies that count, and they do not posses anything remotely resembling the […]
Read more...The ongoing tempest in a teapot about executive compensation at AIG appears to be a bit of Kabuki theater designed to divert attention from the real drama, which is the continuing sweetening of the deal to the troubled insurer. We will get to Congressman Alan Grayson’s pointed questions to Bernanke about the latest de facto […]
Read more...If this Wall Street Journal account is true, AIG’s general counsel should be fired for cause: Ms. Kelly, AIG’s general counsel, has been at the insurer since 2006 and was appointed vice chairman in January under former CEO Edward Liddy. Several people familiar with the matter say Ms. Kelly asked other employees to join her […]
Read more...Newsweek’s “Why is Barney Frank So Effing Mad?” is supposedly about the Congressman from Fidelity but is really about how the banksters are succeeding in neutering financial reform. One Congressional staffer has told me that everyone involved recognizes the measures don’t go far enough, but feel they can’t do much more (Congress can step out […]
Read more...The Bank of International Settlements is taking a more public stand on a matter it took up with central bankers privately prior to the crisis, namely, that overly low interest rates stoke asset bubbles. Its chief economist William White had been warning against overly lax monetary policy as early as 2003: White recognized the brewing […]
Read more...By Satyajit Das, a risk consultant and author of Traders, Guns & Money: Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives Wall Street Revalued: Imperfect Markets and Inept Central Bankers by Andrew Smithers (2009) The Road to Financial Reformation: Warnings, Consequences, Reforms by Henry Kaufman (2009) In a sense, this crisis is about values […]
Read more...Normally I relegate items that I deem important, but to which I have comparatively little to add, to Links and label as “Today’s Must Read.” Even thought this offering falls into that general category, it is far and away the most important “Must Read” I can recall coming across, and so I am highlighting it […]
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