Around the anniversary of the official birth of Occupy Wall Street, a host of bank affiliated financial reporters used the occasion to designate the movement a failure in surprisingly strident terms. Why the need to kick a dead horse?
Read more...By Michael Olenick, creator of NASTIACO, a crowd sourced foreclosure document review system (still in alpha). You can follow him on Twitter at @michael_olenick or read his blog, Seeing Through Data
There’s a strong argument that the competing goals of HERA, minimizing loss while promoting affordable housing, are impossible. But doing the opposite, increasing losses while discouraging affordable housing, is even harder, yet Fannie has done that.
Read more...The spectacle of failure being rewarded during the financial crisis while the rest of us suffered in the resulting economic downdraft has led even people who are cautious about regulation in goods markets to acknowledge that finance is different and needs vigilant oversight. The fact that Elizabeth Warren took her job as the head of the Congressional Oversight Panel seriously produced a huge win for the public. And that is the sort of thing you’d expect if we had more tough-minded regulators in place.
Read more...By Delusional Economics, who is determined to cleanse the daily flow of vested interests propaganda to produce a balanced counterpoint. Cross posted from MacroBusiness.
The economic and political troubles of Greece appear to have no end.
Read more...One of the rationales generally regarded as a knockout among center-left types in the “who is less terrible, Romney or Obama” debate, is the idea that Presidents nominate Supreme Court justices, and Romney’s picks would be further to the right than Obama’s, particularly as far as their position on social issues like reproductive choice and gay rights are concerned. However, the power to nominate is not the same as the power to appoint. It’s disingenuous for Democratic party operatives and their allies in the punditocracy to act as if the move of the court to the right is solely the doing of evil Republicans.
Read more...It was stunning when the news first broke that Rajat Gupta, former head of McKinsey, and member of blue chip boards, most notably, Goldman Sachs, Proctor & Gamble, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, was charged with insider trading. Why would someone who was already rich, and more important, already had the most important commodities can buy, namely status and access, think he needed more?
Contrast Gupta’s behavior with that of the highest profile conviction after America’s last financial crisis, Richard Whitney.
Read more...It was Bill Moyers who used the expression “incestuous orgy” in this interview with former head of SIGTARP Neil Barofsky to describe the relationship between major financial firms and the Federal government. That beats the anodyne “revolving door” all day and I hope becomes part of the lexicon for describing the capture of Washington by Wall Street.
Read more...The October surprises are now coming fast and furious as Obama’s lead is slipping in most polls and on Intrade. So empty gestures to boost turnout in his heretofore spurned Democratic party base are the order of the day.
I’m a day behind on this item, but nevertheless thought it was so cynical as to merit special notice.
Read more...Bill Moyers was taken enough with his chat with former SIGTARP chief Neil Barofsky that he’s having two segments with him.
Read more...Matt Stoller is a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. You can follow him at http://www.twitter.com/matthewstoller.
The big economic strategy for the next term of whoever is Presidenti is essentially, “turn those machines back on”. It’s fracking to replace cheap oil and a new real estate bubble in housing.
Read more...An important piece in the Financial Times by Manmohan Singh, a senior economist at the International Monetary Fund, describes persuasively how one of the central vehicles for reducing derivatives risk, that of having a central counterparty (CCP) and requiring dealers to trade with it rather than have a web of bi-lateral exposures, or rely on banks to act as clearers (making them too big to fail) has gone pear shaped. While the immediate reason for this outcome is the unwillingness of national banking regulators to cede powers to an international clearinghouse, Singh fingers an equally important cause: the reluctance to recognize that the underlying problem was and remains undercollateralized derivatives positions. His introduction to the mess:
Read more...By Delusional Economics, who is determined to cleanse the daily flow of vested interests propaganda to produce a balanced counterpoint. Cross posted from MacroBusiness.
So it’s yet another two days where the leaders of the EU get together for a dinner (this time it’s tarte, fine eggs/mushrooms, braised veal on bed of fresh spinach followed by a chocolate trio) and attempt to thrash out greater economic integration.
Read more...It’s frustrating to know that there’s a simple solution to a serious problem but no one seems willing to do the obvious.
Read more...Bank stress tests have become a contemporary exercise in “the emperor has no clothes”. Everyone by now (or at least everyone who pays attention) knows that the stress tests are an exercise in confidence building, with emphasis on the “con”.
Read more...The mainstream media and Internet were abuzz with the Big Surprise of the day, the sudden exodus of Citigroup CEO Virkam Pandit, the most overpriced and underperforming CEO in the history of corporate America.
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