Category Archives: Regulations and regulators

How Wall Street Gets Development Agencies to Push Emerging Economies into Derivatives

Yves here. This post helps fill readers in on an important, but under the radar topic: how various international organizations push hard to make emerging markets fertile ground for America’s financiers. I became aware of this practice by happenstance. A McKinsey colleague left to join the World Bank in the 1980s. Her job was to set up capital markets in emerging economies. Later on, she set up private equity funds in emerging economies. She left the World Bank recently to help found an emerging markets PE fund of her own. Mind you, it’s not as if she needed the money. She will get a $160,000 (no typo) annual pension for her time at the World Bank, and if she’d stayed a few more yeas, it would have been $220,000.

However, as this post details, the sort of revolving door practices that have been used to suborn regulators in the US appear to have the same sort of persuasive effect on key development agency officials.

Promontory Decides to Reinvest Part of its $1 Billion of Ill Gotten Gains from Botched Foreclosure Reviews By Buying Hiring Former SEC Chief Shapiro

As regular readers may recall, Promontory Financial Group was one of the huge winners from the joke on the public otherwise known as the Independent Foreclosure Review. The only accurate word in that label, it turns out, was “foreclosure”.

So how is Promontory using all its lucre? Buying up even more former regulators to further its reputation as a connected insider. Mary Shapiro had barely left the SEC when she was nominated for a board seat at General Electric, which despite its image as a manufacturer, has for over two decades had nearly half its revenues coming from financial services. And now Shapiro has been signed by Promontory to help arm-twist regulators not to do their job.

Wells Fargo’s “Reprehensible” Foreclosure Abuses Prove Incompetence and Collusion of OCC

Two bankruptcy cases in Louisiana that have revealed systematic, persistent foreclosure abuses by Wells Fargo have gotten enough media attention that it is inconceivable that banking regulators don’t know about them. The lack of any intervention, or even so much as a throat-clearing by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is yet another proof of how the regulator apparently sees its role as fronting for banks rather than enforcing rules.

Pop Quiz: How Big Is the Bailout Of Cyprus?

By Antonis Polemitis, a venture capitalist based in Manhattan. Cross posted from Ledra Capital

Most publications talk about the €10 billion or €17 billion Cyprus bailout. Let’s take a pop quiz on the right answer.

Destruction of Cyprus Economy Proceeding Ahead of Schedule

When I first heard about the Cyprus ~~ritual execution~~ bailout, I had thought that the widespread predictions that the island nation’s economy would contract by 20% to 30% over the next two years were off base.

The Capital Controls in Cyprus and the Icelandic Experience

Cyprus has imposed temporary capital controls. This column sheds light on how temporary and how damaging they are likely to be, based on Iceland’s experience. The longer controls exist, the harder they are to abolish. Icelandic capital controls, which have been ‘temporary’ for half a decade, deeply damage the economy by discouraging investment.

More Scientific Evidence Linking Fracking and Earthquakes

By John C.K. Daly, the chief analyst for Oilprice.com. Cross posted from OilPrice

As the practice of hydraulic fracturing to produce natural gas continues to spread not only in the U.S. but worldwide, the scientific community has increasingly focused on the environmental consequences of the technique. The most worrisome side effect of “fracking” is the rise of earthquakes in areas where the practice is extensive.

David Dayen: OCC, Fed Stonewalling Congressional Oversight of Independent Foreclosure Reviews

A couple months ago, Elizabeth Warren and Elijah Cummings opened what they described as an investigation into the Independent Foreclosure Reviews. We all knew the IFRs deserved some form of response by Congress, and we knew that the OCC and the Fed wanted no part of any questioning of their latest gift to predatory banks and their fraudulent practices.

But we didn’t know how much they would try to stonewall this investigation right from the outset – at least not until today, when Warren and Cummings released some of their recent correspondence with the federal regulators.

World Derivatives Market Estimated As Big As $1.2 Quadrillion Notional, as Banks Fight Efforts to Rein It In

Yves here. Readers have asked us to write about the ginormous scale of the derivatives market. This article is a layperson-friendly discussion of bank efforts to stymie the not-onerous safeguards in Dodd Frank and why you should be up in arms about it.

Bitcoin Bubble or New Virtual Currency?

Yves here. I’ve heretofore avoided the topic of Bitcoin, since I recall the brief fad of the Second Life currency, which then flamed out impressively. And Bitcoin already has had the US Treasury clear its throat and say if market participants try exchanging Bitcoin for dollars, it takes a dim view of that. Recall that the IRS threatened to tax frequent flier miles, but later dropped that idea. But there is a more obvious choke point with Bitcoin, and the Treasury may come up with others if it were to be used as commercial tender. Nevertheless, the fact that Treasury has taken notice suggests that at least some readers are interested in it as well.

Sheila Bair Talks about Bank Greed, JP Morgan London Whale Hearings on Bill Moyers

Not surprisingly, Sheila Bair was appalled by the revelations from Carl Levin’s hearings on the JP Morgan London Whale losses. She discusses not only what it says about the bank, but about the state of regulation in the US.

BRICs Cook the Climate (Part Two)

By Patrick Bond, a political economist with longstanding research interests and NGO work in urban communities and with global justice movements in several countries. He teaches political economy and eco-social policy, directs the Centre for Civil Society and is involved in research on economic justice, geopolitics, climate, energy and water. Cross posted from Triple Crisis

A secondary objective of the Copenhagen deal – aside from avoiding emissions cuts the world so desperately requires – was to maintain a modicum of confidence in carbon markets. Especially after the 2008 financial meltdown and rapid decline of European Union Emissions Trading Scheme, BASIC leaders felt renewed desperation to prop up the ‘Clean Development Mechanism’ (CDM), the Third World’s version of carbon trading

Cyprus Capitulates to Eurozone (Updated)

Bloomberg tweeted about 40 minutes ago that Cyprus had approved the legislation necessary for the EU bailout, but still does not have a news story up. The Wall Street Journal as of now has a “Breaking News” item on its website, again no story yet, “Cyprus lawmakers approve key bills aiming to secure broader bailout package.” So this looks to be a done deal.

ECB to Push Cyprus Over the Brink

Mr. Market decided yesterday that the fact that the Cypriot finance minister, Michalis Sarris, was meeting as previously scheduled with Russian officials meant all would be well. And even better…Bernanke said the Cyprus banking mess would be contained. So why worry?

The ECB just announced that it will extend the ELA to Cyprus only through Monday. After that, it will cut off Cyprus if it has not knuckled under to an EU/IMF deal.