Wolf Richter: Government By Eurocrats – The Olive-Oil Dispenser Debacle
Yves here. This post illustrates a chief reason why regulation has become a bad word.
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David Dayen: FSOC Annual Report Shows Continued Interest in Austerity Bargain Over Reducing Financial System
With Jack Lew now installed at Treasury, I decided to take a look at the annual report of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), the Dodd-Frank creation that’s supposed to monitor systemic risk. We already know the leanings of the not-so-new regime at Treasury: they think Dodd-Frank worked to secure a more stable financial system, an opinion reiterated Tuesday at a Senate Banking Committee hearing.
Read more...Is Jamie Dimon Really Out of the Woods With Shareholder Thumbs Down on Splitting CEO/Chairman Roles? (Updated)
There’s a surprising degree of blogosphere acceptance of JP Morgan’s messaging on the shareholder vote today regarding whether to split the CEO and Chairman roles, that this result was a vote of confidence in his prowess as CEO. Huh?
Read more...David Dayen: SEC Convenes Foot-Dragging Roundtable on Rating Agency Reform, While Securities Issuers Return to Familiar Rating-Shopping Tricks
A few months ago, I wrote a story for The American Prospect about the credit rating agencies, and their thus-far successful effort to ward off any change to their business model, despite their wretched performance during the crisis. This is true even though Dodd-Frank contained a measure, written by Al Franken, to alter the issuer-pays model that incentivizes higher ratings in the pursuit of future profits. The Franken-Wicker rule (the “Wicker” is Republican Senator Roger Wicker) would create a self-regulating organization to randomly assign securities to accredited rating agencies, with more securities over time going to the agencies that rated the most accurately.
Read more...Catholic Church Voicing Opposition to Eurozone Austerity
It’s been slow in coming, but religious leaders are starting to speak out against the mechanisms and high social cost of austerity.
Read more...Josh Rosner on How Dodd Frank Institutionalizes Too Big to Fail
Josh Rosner of Graham Fisher testifies before a subcommittee of the House Financial Services committee today on why Dodd Frank has not ended too big to fail, but also has managed to entrench the megafirms’ advantaged position.
Read more...Mel Watt, Nominee to Head FHFA, Opposes Administration by Voting to Deregulate Derivatives
Good progressives like MoveOn, New Bottom Line, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, AFR, Elizabeth Warren, and Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO have all fallen in line with Obama’s nomination of Mel Watt, Representative from Bank of America North Carolina.
It might help if they looked harder at Watt. If they were honest about it, there’s not much to like.
Read more...The Limits of Governing Budgetary Policies by Rules
By Daniela Schwarzer, who heads the research unit European Integration at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) in Berlin. Cross posted from Triple Crisis
The European squabble over budgetary austerity reached a new peak a good week ago when a document drafted by leading representatives of the French Socialist Party, which reportedly had been seen by Elysée officials close to President Hollande, personally attacked German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Less mediatized, but more telling about the nature of the governance problems facing the euro area, are the statements made by Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici this weekend.
Read more...Bill Black: Brown-Vitter Will Not and Cannot Work but it is Criminogenic
Yves here. Like Black, I see Brown-Vitter as well-intended but seriously flawed.
Read more...Jon Stewart Disses OCC and Independent Foreclosure Review
Jon Stewart piled on to the widespread criticism of the Independent Foreclosure Review fiasco.
Read more...Wall Street Hiring More Ex-Government Prostitutes Officials to Assure it Gets its Way
The infamous James Carville quote, “Drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you’ll find,” seems more applicable to official Washington than the much-maligned Paula Jones.
Read more...California Attorney General Sues JP Morgan Over Debt Collection Abuses, Including Sewer Service, Robosigning
California Attorney General Kamala Harris is on a roll.
Read more...Wolf Richter: When Flight Safety Gets Outsourced To China
Aircraft maintenance was a highly paid blue-collar job that required education, training, manual skills, and brains. It was one of the perfect American middle-class jobs with generous healthcare, retirement, and vacation benefits; and free flights! They were working for icons like Delta, American Airlines, Continental, TWA, or Pan Am. Icons indeed!
Read more...More Foreclosure Settlement Fiascoes: Rust Consulting Underpays Some Harmed Borrowers
Rust Consulting, which handled the borrower mailings during the Independent Foreclosure Review and is now acting as paying agent, continues to screw up in every way imaginable.
Read more...JP Morgan: A New Type of Dirty Energy
By Jen Alic, a geopolitical analyst, co-founder of ISA Intel (www.isaintel.com) in Sarajevo and the former editor-in-chief of ISN Security Watch in Zurich. Cross posted from OilPrice
As US power plants lose money, a bit of market manipulation goes a long way … ask JPMorgan Chase.
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