Category Archives: Regulations and regulators

Dave Dayen: Yes, Katrina, Wall Street Won Again, and Progressives Need to Face Up to That

By David Dayen, a lapsed blogger, now a freelance writer based in Los Angeles, CA. Follow him on Twitter @ddayen

Greetings, NC readers! Yves has been nice enough to open up her Internet home to me, and I intend to grab the opportunity from time to time. This offer turned fortuitous after I wrote a little piece from Salon on the “anniversary” of the securitization fraud task force, announced at last year’s State of the Union address. Well, Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation, got very upset at my characterization of the task force

Quelle Surprise! The Administration Wants You to Believe it is Serious About Prosecuting Banks

There are times I feel sorry for the business reporters at the New York Times.

Banks on the Counter-Attack in the Food and Finance Debate

By Jennifer Clapp, Professor in the Environment and Resource Studies Department and CIGI Chair in Global Environmental Governance, Balsillie School of International Affairs, University of Waterloo, Canada. Cross posted from Triple Crisis

NGOs have stepped up their critique of large investment banks’ involvement in agricultural commodity derivatives markets in recent months. Now, it appears that the banks are starting to fight back.

Should Bethany McLean Be Bothered by the Government Lawsuit Against S&P?

Bethany McLean just released a piece at Reuters which presents a good overview of the Department of Justice case against rating agency Standard and Poor’s for its conduct in rating residential mortgage backed securities and CDOs.* The high level description of the case, in particular, why the government used FIRREA as its cause of action, is helpful.

I have mixed feeling about taking issue with McLean, since she generally does a fine job of reporting and analysis, but there were some things about her piece that were so surprising that I thought they really needed to be discussed.

Elizabeth Warren Makes Promising Start in Senate Banking Committee Hearing

The progressive blogosphere seems pleased with Elizabeth Warren’s initial foray in the Senate Banking Committee.

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.

OCC Compounds Botched Foreclosure Review Process with Barmy Plan for Distributing Peanuts

The OCC is bravely trying to spin the horrorshow of its botched foreclosure reviews as some sort of positive outcome. It is apparently now trying to present its dereliction of duty in figuring out how to compensate borrowers as no big deal.

Dave Dayen on How the CFPB Punted on Servicer Reform

I know a lot of readers miss Dave Dayen, who had a solid following at Firedoglake and among other things, covered the mortgage beat ably and energetically. He’s apparently been busy reporting, and just published a story in Washington Monthly on how the mortgage standards launched by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fall well short of what is necessary.

Bank of America Foreclosure Reviews: Why the OCC Overlooked “Independent” Reviewer Promontory’s Keystone Cops Act (Part VB)

This post continues our discussion of the role of “independent” foreclosure review consultant Promontory Financial Group. Here we focus on what happened, or more important, didn’t happen in Promontory’s conduct of the reviews, and how that contrasts with the staggering fees the firm is widely believed to have earned.

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.

Is the Euro Crisis Over?

By Robert Guttmann, Professor of Economics at Hofstra University and a visiting Professor at University of Paris, Nord. Cross posted from Triple Crisis

A strange calm has settled over Europe. Following Mr. Draghi’s July 2012 promise “to do whatever it takes” to save the euro, which the head of the European Central Bank followed shortly thereafter with a new program of potentially unlimited bond buying known as “outright monetary transactions,” the market panic evaporated. This calming of once-panicky debt markets has led to optimistic assessments that the worst of the crisis has passed. All this begs the obvious question whether this major shift in mood is justified and as such durable or just a temporary break before the next storm.

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.

Credit Ratings Agencies Are Pimps of Wall Street – It’s Time to Ban Them!

By Marshall Auerback, a market analyst and commentator. Cross posted from Alternet.

Is Eric Holder’s “See No Evil, Hear No Evil” Department of Justice finally getting serious about investigating fraud on Wall Street?

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.

Bank of America Foreclosure Reviews: How the Cover-Up Happened (Part IVB)

This post continues our discussion of how Bank of America and its consultant, Promontory Financial Group, made concerted efforts to ignore and suppress evidence of harm to borrowers who asked for what was supposed to be an independent review of their foreclosure.