Category Archives: Regulations and regulators

Memo to Schneiderman Mortgage Task Force: When You are in a Hole, Quit Digging

The much ballyhooed mortgage task force seems to be hewing to the Obama play book of believing that any problem can be solved with better propaganda.

Frontline’s Astonishing Whitewash of the Crisis

Several of my savviest readers wrote expressing disappointment and consternation with the Frontline series on the crisis, “Money, Power, and Wall Street.” The first two parts of the four part series have been released, and it’s probably safe to say that this program is far enough along to be beyond redemption.

Morgan Sandquist: Finance in Denial

By Morgan Sandquist, a member of the Occupy Wall Street Alternative Banking Group. Cross posted from mathbabe

The largest banks in America–Citibank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and others–are probably insolvent.

Fed Paper on Repo Exposes Inadequacy of Financial Reforms

I’m late to write on a terrific and largely unnoticed paper presented at the Federal Reserve Board’s research conference on “Central Banking: Before, During and After the Crisis” in late March (hat tip Michael C). “A Proposal for the Resolution of Systemically Important Assets and Liabilities: The Case of the Repo Market” by Viral V. Acharya and T. Sabri Öncu could be more accurately titled, “What Financial Reform Missed.”

CFPB Scrutinizing Bank Overdraft Fees

While the mortgage settlement sellout has been a singularly depressing process, once in a while there are encouraging bits of news on the bank regulation front.

An open question has been whether the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would live up to its promise.

Jeffrey Sommers: No Exit in EU

Peter Praet, Chief Economist of the European Central Bank, defended the ECB’s policies at Levy Institute’s annual Minsky meeting at the Ford Foundation this past week in New York. In his remarks, he retreaded the EU’s wheels with the same rhetoric of inflation fighting and fiscal tightening that drove the EU off the road and into the ditch to begin with.

Yet Another Obama Big Lie: Mortgage Fraud Investigation Not Even Staffed

The Administration has managed the impressive task of operating in a more cynical fashion than even its worst critics predicted.

Yanis Varoufakis on Ringfencing Europe

Yanis Varoufakis gave an energetic, pointed, and insightful talk at the INET conference in Berlin. His message was that the efforts by European authorities were misguided, in that they were seeking to ringfence individual countries, when it was the Eurozone as a whole that needs to be shored up. And he contends this can be done now without special approvals.

Bill Black: The Silver Anniversary of the “Keating Five” Meeting – Citizens United’s Precursor

Yves here. One of the themes in this Bill Black post is that a senior official who understands the importance of effective regulation can have an impact in a relatively short period of time. It’s important to keep that in mind as a reminder that the obstacle to reining in banks isn’t feasibility but lack of political will.

Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives.

April 9, 2012 is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the most infamous savings and loan fraud, Charles Keating’s, successful use of five U.S. Senators to escape sanction for a massive violation of the law. The Senators were Alan Cranston (D. CA), Dennis DeConcini (D. AZ), John Glenn (D OH), John McCain (R. AZ), and Donald Riegle (D. MI). They became infamous as the “Keating Five.” I was one of four regulators who attended the April 9, 1987 meeting. I took the notes of the meeting, in transcript format, that were so detailed and accurate that the Senators testified that they were sure I had tape recorded the meeting. (The reality is that I owe my note taking abilities to Bill Valentine, my high school debate coach, and experience debating for the University of Michigan.)

Reviewing my (near) transcript of the April 9 offers a large number of important lessons that would have allowed us to avoid future crises.

Jobs Act 2012 a Recipe for Fraud

It is hard to say enough bad things about the Jumpstart Obama’s Bucket Shops act in a short space. I’m in the UK now, and a contact asked me to explain it to him. When I told him of some of the major provisions, he could not believe what he was hearing. He said (correctly) that it was a great boon for conmen and aside from a few companies who were early to raise money under the new law, would make obtaining equity funding more difficult and costly for legitimate operators.

This Real News Network interview with Bill Black gives an overview: