How Many Flints? America’s Coast-to-Coast Toxic Crisis
Flint is just the tip of the iceberg of lead poisoning in America.
Read more...Category Archives: Regulations and regulators
Money and Banking – The Fed and Monetary Policy
A very readable, information-rich post on what the Fed does and does not do, with emphasis on the nitty-gritty of monetary policy. If you are time-pressed, read the last item in the FAQ first, which is a terse item-by-item debunking of widely made, inaccurate statements about the Fed.
Read more...Why the Market Freakout About Bank Stocks is Well Warranted
Bad loans are not the only reason to worry about banks. ZIRP and negative interest rates will bleed them to death, and Eurobanks are at real risk of bank runs.
Read more...Capital Requirements: Another Odd Attempt to Declare Victory on Dodd-Frank
I suppose we’re going to have to deal with half-truths and logical stretches about Dodd-Frank right through until November, but Bernie Sanders’ focus on Wall Street has really ramped this up of late. The trajectory appears to be a show of proof of some sort, followed by a blog link from Paul Krugman, at which point the citation hardens into conventional wisdom. The version of this that began a few days ago with Wonkblog’s Matt O’Brien has a level of truth to it, of course, but I don’t think it reveals exactly what its endorsers think.
Read more...Jim Hightower: What Really Poisoned the Water in Flint, Michigan
Flint reveals that there is a much deeper contamination poisoning our country’s political morals.
Read more...Bill Black: How Many Lies Can the WSJ Pack into a Chart on Liar’s Loans?
Bill Black is not happy about the revisionist history on liar’s loans. And separately, this piece is a useful exercise in the critical reading of narratives.
Read more...The North Korean Connections of US Billionaire Naguib Sawiris and US Defence Company Contrack Watts
US Billionaire Naguib Sawiris and his Contrack Watts, a major US defence contractor, turn out to have ties to North Korea, via an amazingly profitable mobile phone company
Read more...Central Counterparties: The New Locus of Systemic Risk?
Central counterparties, also known as central clearinghouses, were supposed to reduce systemic risk. That story is not playing out according to its script.
Read more...The Bank Whistleblowers United – Who are We, and Why are We Trying to Help Implement Real Banking Reform?
The stories of the four whistleblowers who came together to push for bank accountability in the next Administration.
Read more...Bill Black: Announcing the Bank Whistleblowers’ Group’s Initial Proposals
Bill Black is spearheading an important initiative by bank whistleblowers to combat fraud and other abuses by banks.
Read more...Flint: Let Them Drink Pollution?
Why the crisis in Flint, Michigan is about race and class, and the American nightmare of metastasizing inequality of wealth and power.
Read more...Wobbly Italian Banks May Get “Bad Bank” Resolution Vehicle
Italian banks’ extend and pretend game may be coming to an end.
Read more...SEC Data Show Reduction in Criminal Prosecutions Since 2010
Every year the SEC delivers an annual report right around the holidays that gets virtually forgotten by everyone. But a tipster highlighted one part of the document that matches recent research about the way in which the agency plays with numbers. Urska Velikonja, assistant professor at Emory School of Law, released the study late last […]
Read more...Geithner Ghostwriter Mike Grunwald Tries to Shift Financial Crisis Narrative Away From The Big Short
It’s sad that you have to be something of a detective to decipher what passes for content at most major American news outlets. In the case of Michael Grunwald, however, we have a decent set of indicators about the normally hidden agenda. The Politico writer worked with Tim Geithner on his memoir. In fact, I believe he has said publicly that he didn’t know a lot about finance before meeting Geithner. So when Grunwald decides to leap into anything involving this topic, we can assume the end result is not altogether different than what it would look like if Geithner wrote it with his own byline.
The latest example is a nominal review of The Big Short, which is not really a review. It’s an attempt to steer the narrative of what happened, in the financial crisis and its aftermath, to territory that comforts elites.
Read more...Gaius Publius: Wall Street Reviews What Sanders Plans for Wall Street
An overview of the Sanders Big Finance reform proposal, and some of the ways it has been caricatured or flat-out misrepresented
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