Did Intrade Do an MF Global?
By Rajiv Sethi, Professor of Economics, Barnard College, Columbia University. Cross posted from his blog
Read more...Category Archives: Moral hazard
Dave Dayen: Servicers Committed Loan Error Rates of Either 4.2% or 97.2%, Take Your Pick
By David Dayen, a lapsed blogger, now a freelance writer based in Los Angeles, CA. Follow him on Twitter @ddayen
Anyone paying a smattering of attention justifiably raised a skeptical eyebrow at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s assurances to Congress that the Independent Foreclosure Reviews revealed hardly any borrower harm from servicer malfeasance. One has to marvel at this wondrous finding, particularly since just about no one who has gotten close to the records who was not paid for by banks has come up harm estimates remotely this low. Which raises another question: did the OCC lie (or more charitably, artfully fudge numbers) to Congress?
Read more...Steve Waldman, Who Extolled Deception and Theft, Needs to Explain Himself
At the end of 2011, Steve Waldman wrote:
Read more...Michael M. Thomas’ Solution to the Crisis
Now, if only anyone had listened….
By Michael M. Thomas, who figured out Wall Street was not all it was cracked up to be before most of you were born. Originally published at his Midas Watch column at the New York Observer, March 10, 2009
Read more...Ian Fraser: Stephen Hester, the Great Escape Artist
By Ian Fraser, a financial journalist who blogs at his web site and at qfinance. His Twitter is @ian_fraser. [An edited version of this article was published on pages 34-35 of the Sunday Herald on February 10th, 2013].
It has been described as the biggest banking felony in history … yet no-one has been prosecuted for the Libor fixing scandal. Ian Fraser looks at the RBS sacrificial lambs.
During Royal Bank of Scotland’s IT meltdown last summer, chief executive Stephen Hester referred to the risk “that you turn over rocks and find new things [that you have to clean up].” Last Wednesday, nearly five years on from the £45.5 billion taxpayer funded rescue of the Edinburgh based lender, a vast rock was hoisted aloft by three regulators. What lurked underneath was not a pleasant sight.
Read more...Bank of America Foreclosure Reviews: How Promontory Became a Shadow Regulator (Part VA)
Today we release the two latest posts in our whistleblower series on the Bank of America foreclosure reviews, focusing on the role of the “independent” consultant hired to perform the reviews, Promontory Financial Group.
Read more...Neil Barofsky Tells Jon Stewart How the Ego and Narcissism of Washington Preserve a Broken Status Quo
Hope you enjoy this chat. I did, despite its predictably depressing conclusion. Stewart and Barofsky do a good job of conveying how DC works and why that guaranteed “a thoroughly broken financial system” would stay intact.
Read more...Neil Barofsky: Geithner Doctrine Lives on in Libor Scandal
By Neil Barofsky, the former special inspector-general of the troubled asset relief programme and is currently a senior fellow at NYU School of Law. He is the author of ‘Bailout’. Cross posted from the Financial Times with permission
Now that Tim Geithner has resigned as US Treasury secretary, it is time to survey the damage wrought from four years of his approach to the financial crisis.
Read more...Bill Black: Yglesias Mimics “Mankiw Morality” and Bashes Bastiat
Yves here. Remind me never to get on Bill Black’s bad side.
Read more...Bill Black: Yglesias Pours the Geithner, Holder, Breuer (GHB) Banksters Immunity Doctrine in our Drinks
By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
It’s early, but Salon has published on January 30, 2013 either the funniest or saddest column of the year to date: “Are Banks Too Big To Prosecute?”
Read more...The Garrulous Insolence of Simon Thompson and Anthony Browne
A pair of idiots testing the patience of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards
Read more...Devolution: Welcome to the World Where Things Don’t Work Well
When I took the introductory fine arts course in college (which actually was a tough course), one of the ideas that stuck with me was devolution.
Read more...The Incredible Shrinking HBOS Fraud
Reviewing the press coverage of the HBOS fraud charges, and asking some questions.
Read more...Cathy O’Neil: Why Nate Silver is Not Just Wrong, but Maliciously Wrong
By Cathy O’Neil, a data scientist. Cross posted from mathbabe
I just finished reading Nate Silver’s newish book, The Signal and the Noise: Why so many predictions fail – but some don’t. I have major problems with this book and what it claims to explain. In fact, I’m angry.
Read more...Stealth Target of Defense Spending Cuts: America’s Highly Effective Socialized Medicine Provider, the VA System, and Military Benefits Generally
One element of the coming budget pact that is not getting the attention it warrants is a covert effort to gut military benefits by privatizing them.
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