Category Archives: Regulations and regulators

British regulators disclose terms of emergency aid during panic of 2008

By Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns The Financial Times reports that British regulators have now opened up to reveal more of the details surrounding the emergency aid banks received during the most acute periods of stress to date in the financial crisis. Meanwhile, in the U.S., the Federal Reserve continues to resist providing greater details. […]

Goldman/AIG Conspiracy Theories: There’s a Reason They Won’t Go Away

Note: this post is by Thomas Adams, at Paykin Krieg and Adams, LLP, and a former managing director at Ambac and FGIC, with some minor additions by yours truly. This is a significant piece of some puzzles he, some other experts who prefer to remain anonymous, and I have been pushing on for several months. […]

The Kanjorski Amendment Trojan Horse and Prompt Corrective Action

By Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns Two weeks ago as the Financial Reform Bill was wending its way through Congress, Paul Kanjorski emerged as the champion of breaking up too-big-to-fail financial institutions. After seeing trillions of dollars in taxpayer money go to backstopping, propping up and guaranteeing the liabilities of weak financial institutions, It looked […]

Quelle Surprise! Top Brass at Failed Firms Profited Handsomely

The New York Times discusses a study (supposedly released, but the paper has yet to be posted) by corporate governance expert and Harvard Law School professor Lucien Bebchuk (along with Alma Cohen and Holger Spamann) on how much the top echelon at failed firms Bear Stearns and Lehman really suffered when their firms imploded. The […]

50% Say Their Bank Increased Credit Card Rates In the Last Six Months

Many readers have complained of credit card issuers raising interest rates on their cards, even if the customer has pristine credit and never or rarely carries a balance. Now we are finally seeing some efforts to see how significant this is across all card users. A Rasmussen survey puts the total at 50% of all […]

Democratic Rep. DeFazio Calls for Geithner and Summers to Be Fired

The knives are starting to come out. DeFazio claims the discontent among the progressive wing has become acute. The Democratic Congressmen who have a operating brain cell know the considerable failings of Obama’s economic policies will be visited on them unless serious corrective action is taken in pretty short order. And that won’t happen with […]

Very Abbreviated Takedown on SIGTARP Report on AIG CDS Payouts

Dear sports fans, your humble blogger, along with a ton of others, got the not-very-embargoed copy of the SIGTARP report on the New York Fed’s conduct with respect to its full payout on AIG’s credit default swaps to its counterparties. The press is treating the report as if it was tough. I was sputtering with […]

“Dudley and the Missing Lessons of the Financial Crisis”

By Richard Alford, a former economist at the New York Fed. Since then, he has worked in the financial industry as a trading floor economist and strategist on both the sell side and the buy side. On Friday, William Dudley, President of FRBNY, gave an excellent presentation on the financial crisis. The speech was a […]

“Should America Kowtow to China?”

By Marshall Auerback, a fund manager and investment strategist who writes for New Deal 2.0. Another Presidential junket to Asia and another one of the usual lectures from China, decrying our “profligate ways”. Today’s Wall Street Journal reports:, “China’s top banking regulator issued a sharp critique of U.S. financial management only hours before President Barack […]

Of Course, Treasury Wants To Hang on to TARP Money

When has a bureaucrat every wanted to give up on a big slush fund? Particularly one with no strings attached? What is heinous about the discussion of Treasury’s plan to argue that it should have its authority under the TARP extended is the failure to include some of the most basic and troubling issues. First, […]

UK to Propose Legislation to Contain Banker Pay, Make Suits Against Banks Easier

The theater is starting to get interesting. Here in the US we have banker pay theater masquerading as the real thing. Kenneth Feinberg, the so-called pay-czar, struggles to collect a few scalps at the handful of TARP institutions under his domain, with the ever-intransigent AIG making headlines. This of course is meant to distract attention […]

Freddie and Fannie Outside Supervisor Ousted

A new bit of chicanery illustrates why it’s a lousy idea for the government to allow wards of the state like the GSEs and AIG to operate like kinda-sort private enterprises. When banks were nationalized in Sweden and Norway, the top brass and the boards were fired, and they were given strict goals and operating […]

The Kanjorski “We’re Tough on TBTF” Headfake

Dear God, if you read the media, you’d really think the Congressional huffing and puffing at the banking industry was going to solve the “too big to fail” problem, or even make much of a difference. Folks, I hate to tell you, these remedies fall so far short of what it would take as to […]

AIG’s Benmosche Can’t Push Uncle Sam Around, So Threatens to Quit

AIG’s CEO Robert Benmosche has displayed extraordinarily arrogance even before he took the job, so his latest stunt, a threat to leave AIG high and dry by quitting a mere three months in, should come as no surprise. Frankly, from the get-go, Benmosche fit the stereotype of a narcissistic top executive, with the extra seasoning […]