Category Archives: Regulations and regulators

Former CFTC Commissioner Michael Greenberger: “We’re Going to be Back Where We Were in 2008”

This interview with former CFTC Commissioner Michael Greenberger provides useful detail on why financial reform proved to be so weak.

How the Scammers Behind Virgin Gold Mining Corporation Bit Off More Than They Could Chew (IV)

The last piece in our series on Virgin Gold Mining Corporation, for the moment

Wolf Richter: In Search of Cheap Labor in Tech – Behind the H1-B Visa Scenes

his post focuses on how the procedures in the H1-B visa process that are meant to protect workers from unfair competition from foreign workers and contractors are a joke. And this is one of the reasons that the calls by disconnected Beltway pundits and technocrats for American students to get more technically oriented education, most of all in STEM fields, is hopelessly misguided. Companies are more and more refusing to supply much if anything in the way of entry-level jobs, sending yeoman’s work in former white collar professions, including accounting and the law, to outsources in India. And the fix of having more specialized training is just as unrealistic. The more specialized the training, the more at risk you are that those skills will prove to be useless. That is why so many mid-career professionals fall far when they lose their perch, since if they can’t use the narrow expertise that they’ve accumulated, they have to fall back on their generalist skills, which means low-level jobs like call center work, retail, or if they are lucky, a position like an office manager in a small business.

ECB to Greece: Drop Dead

Even by the standards of bank thuggishness, the move by the ECB against Greece last night was a stunner. Americans have become used to banks taking houses under dubious pretexts when both the investors and borrowers would do better with a writedown. But to see the ECB try take a country is another matter entirely. As one seasoned pro said, “If anyone had tried something like this against a country with a decent sized military, the tanks would be rolling.”

How the Scammers Behind Virgin Gold Mining Corporation Bit Off More Than They Could Chew (III)

Yet more twists in the tale of the giant pyramid fraud, Virgin Gold Mining Corporation: Plan “C” starts to come unravelled.

Tom Adams: Ocwen’s Servicing Meltdown Proves Failure of Obama’s Mortgage Settlements

Rather than listen to thousands of borrower complaints, housing advocates, foreclosure attorneys, market experts and, well…, us, the Obama Administration tried to paper over the many problems in the mortgage servicing market by creating the foreclosure settlement (officially the National Mortgage Settlementof 2012), as well as the earlier OCC enforcement actions against big mortgage servicers.

Now we have the disaster of Ocwen, the fifth largest servicer in the country, imploding as a result of the settlement charade.

How the Scammers Behind Virgin Gold Mining Corporation Bit Off More Than They Could Chew (II)

More shenanigans from Virgin Gold Mining Corporation and its little helpers.

How the Scammers Behind Virgin Gold Mining Corporation Bit Off More Than They Could Chew (I)

First in a series of posts exploring Virgin Gold, an immense ($2Bn?) pyramid scheme with a messy aftermath

Did New York Times’ Dealbook Throw a Source Under the Bus in TPG Suit Against Ex-Employee/Ex-White House Staffer?

If a lawsuit filed yesterday by TPG is to be taken at face value, the private equity kingpin has been the subject of a nasty extortion attempt by a vengeful now former employee, Adam Levine. Levine allegedly not only threatened to use his PR clout to bring down the firm, but purloined confidential materials from TPG’s systems and doctored at least one before sending it to a reporter at New York Times’ Dealbook. And TPG further claims it had good reason to be worried because Levine asserted that it was his grand jury testimony, shortly after he left the Bush White House as a member of its communications team, that brought down Scooter Libby.

But the real bombshell in the filing is the way that the New York Times’ Dealbook looks to have thrown Levine, an alleged source, under the bus.

Is Power8, Sponsor of Everton FC, Fulham FC and RCD Espanyol, a Giant Ponzi?

Yves here. Richard Smith is on the trail of what looks to be his biggest international scam find ever, orders of magnitude larger than the usual below the radar single to low double digit million dollar/pound/euro operation that he has ferreted out in the past. And mind you, even though he focuses on the dubious looking inter-corporate relationships and the often evident lack of normal investors protections and business substance, these companies sell hope and glamour to typically credulous retail investors who lose their money and have no recourse.

New Zealand’s Cathy Odgers Bungles Her Resignation From Pacific Fiduciaries

There’s no end in sight to Odgers’ inept duplicity: she can’t even tell the truth about her resignation from Pacific Fiduciaries

KKR’s Botched Document Cover-Up Reveals Washington Public Pension Fund Cronyism

As we’ve been examining private equity abuses, readers have been incredulous that investors have put up with one-sided, deliberately vague, complex, and/or obfuscatory contracts, unreasonable demands for secrecy, and lack of access to critically important information, such as the financial statements of the portfolio companies that they own. This failure of investors to protect their own interest is particularly troubling given that so many are fiduciaries.

We have another example of this sort of conduct that comes out of an important story in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. Private equity kingpin KKR made what amounted to an admission of guilt by rebating fees that the SEC had found were improperly charged, meaning stolen from the limited partners. We’ve obtained the document that was the foundation of the story and are embedding it at the end of this post. It’s a remarkable example of how cronyistic the relationships are between hapless, captured investors and the general partners who led them by the nose.

We are about to do some document forensic work, so put on your gumshoes!

KKR Rebates Some Ill-Gotten Fees to Investors Due to Dodd Frank Reforms

KKR made what amounted to an admission of guilt to the blistering charges that the SEC laid at the doorstep of the private equity industry last May. Then, Andrew Bowden described in unusually specific detail the widespread, serious abuses it was finding in its initial private equity examinations, including what amounted to embezzlement.

Mark Maremont of the Wall Street Journal, based on a document obtained by FOIA from the Washington State Investment Board, learned that KKR had disgorged some ill-gotten fees.

New Zealand’s Cathy Odgers and Fraud Stock HCI Hamilton: the Denouement

GXG Markets seem to agree with me about the apparent connection between Cathy Odgers’ Pacific Fiduciaries and an exceedingly obvious boiler room fraud, HCI Hamilton.

Fed Testimony in AIG Bailout Trial: If It Walks Like Perjury and Quacks Like Perjury…

One of the most striking things about the testimony in the AIG bailout trial is the degree to which Fed officials play fast and loose with the truth. And I don’t mean the normal CEO version of having no memory of events that are inconvenient and very detailed recollections of things that boost their case. I mean statements that are flat out false.