Felix Rohatyn, an Icon of an Older Wall Street, Is Dead
Why Felix Rohatyn was and wasn’t typical of his industry.
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Book Review: Chris Arnade’s “Dignity”
Chris Arnade’s 150,000-mile, multi-year photograhic journey through unthriving America—urban and rural, black and white, from Lewiston, Maine, to Bakersfield, California, with many stops in between.
Read more...Double Whammy: Implicit Subsidies and the Great Financial Crisis
Follow the subsidies, and you will understand why we had the crisis and why not enough has been done to prevent a recurrence.
Read more...How Wall Street Enabled the Fracking ‘Revolution’ That’s Losing Shale Oil Companies Billions
Fracking harms the environment and shale oil companies fail to turn a profit but that doesn’t stop Wall Street from lending them huge sums of money, driven by lust for fees.
Read more...Buffett, Bezos, and Dimon Launch “An Undertaking of Great Advantage” to “Innovate” in Health Care
Decoding the press release on the new health care venture from Berkshire Hathway, Amazon, and JP Morgan.
Read more...Artificial Intelligence and the Stability of Markets
AI may revolutionise risk management and financial supervision, but also threatens to destabilise markets and increase systemic risk.
Read more...New Potential Credit Risk Bombs: Exotic, ‘Nonlinear’ and Private Transactions
Beware of old CDO risk re-imaged as “nonlinear finance”.
Read more...Gaius Publius: Obama Follows Clinton, Boards the Millionaire Speech Train to Wall Street
Like Bill Clinton before him, ex-President Barack Obama has boarded the Wall Street-financed train to millionaire riches.
Read more...Fiduciary Rule: Helps Not Hurts Wall Street, So Full Rescission Unlikely
WSJ says fiduciary rule helps Wall Street, so rescission unlikely. But still may be better for retail investors than previous status quo.
Read more...Trump Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin Renounces Commitment to Glass-Steagall While Saying He Isn’t
Steven Mnuchin demonstrates that he is a shameless liar even by Goldman standards.
Read more...China Cannot Finance the Belt and Road Alone
The One Belt One Road initiative holds great promise for the global economy, but will need a huge amount of finance. Initial presumptions that China would be able to provide all the finance are now unrealistic. Other partners should consider providing finance for some aspects, especially Europe – which has a lot to gain from the project.
Read more...Business Press Waking Up to Bank Legacy IT Risk
Reuters discusses the challenge of moving off legacy systems. While the piece is a long overdue, it still seems more than a tad optimistic.
Read more...Wolf Richter: Judge Reveals Shady Side of Crushed Aetna-Humana Merger, Banks to Lick their Wounds, Aetna to Get Pummeled
Yesterday, a federal judge blocked Aetna’s $34-billion acquisition of Humanam, citing concerns that their combined pricing power would raise costs to consumers.
Read more...Ending Too Big to Fail
Yves here. Remember the explosion of press coverage last year when incoming Minneapolis Fed member and former Goldmanite and Treasury official Neel Kashkari announced his intent to develop a plan to end the “too big to fail” problem. He not only was going to devote Minneapolis Fed researchers to his program, but solicited broad based […]
Read more...“Peak Trade” is Premature
Over the past five years, global trade growth has been stagnant. With protectionist sentiment intensifying. Will this trend continue?
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