In theory, Monday’s Supreme Court decision to bar state oversight of subsidiaries of federally chartered banks was simply a confirmation of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s efforts to assert (and some would say extend) its authority, but the effect is to end the dual structure which permitted both federal and state regulation […]
Read more...I always take note when a writer takes a position that is contrary to his usual stance. Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution is an intelligent and thoughtful commentator, but hews too closely to free market orthodoxy for my taste. But his review of Maggie Mahar’s Money- Driven Medicine, a hard-hitting critique of health care, American […]
Read more...We’ve argued several times that the Fed isn’t what it used to be (see here and here and here), so we are gratified to see other commentators take up the theme. The headline the title of a post by Russell Wood at Seeking Alpha. It makes some important observations: the Fed regulates banks only, and […]
Read more...Although it hasn’t gotten much attention in the business press yet, the House Financial Services Committee is on the warpath to clean up subprime mortgage lending. Most of their ideas, such as tighter regulation of mortgage brokers, strike observers as reasonable. But one has created a great deal of alarm. The concept is “assignee liability,” […]
Read more...So far, it hasn’t gotten much attention in the mainstream business press, but Bloomberg and the Financial Times are very much on top of the story: the House Financial Services Committee is moving forward with proposals to impose new regulations on subprime lending. And Democrats and Republicans are largely on the same page. There are […]
Read more...A front page story in today’s Financial Times, “Foreign carmakers doubt Detroit’s ethanol,” report on a split of opinon within the auto industry as to which technology to pursue to reduce carbon emissions. US automakers are keenly promoting E85, which is a mixture of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline; foreign companies are investing in diesel, […]
Read more...The Financial Times today reports on an open letter from Charles Dallara, the head of the lobbying group representing the world’s largest financial institutions, to Gordon Brown, the UK chancellor and chairman of the IMF’s governing council, on the risks to growth. What is fascinating, and worrisome, is that the letter doesn’t talk about the […]
Read more...Sorry for the number of posts from the Financial Times today, but it happens to have stories no one else is carrying (yet). The FT tells us today that the EU has ordered Microsoft to hand over what the company calls “sensitive and valuable technical information about its Windows operating system for next to no […]
Read more...The Wall Street Journal reports tonight on its website, and presumably tomorrow in its print edition, that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Friday that ongoing issues in the subprime mortgage market could force bank regulators to rethink their enforcement of a 30-year-old law that requires banks to serve the credit needs in their communities…. […]
Read more...Faithful readers may have read our recent posts on the limits to the Fed’s regulatory authority, both relative to the subprime mess and to the proliferation of new instruments (see here and here and here). We had the spectacle last week of Roger Cole, the Federal Reserve’s director of supervision and regulation appearing before the […]
Read more...A post from a reader, “Toothless Fed,” argues that the latest wave of financial innovation has produced “profit grabs” by the few at the expense of the many, Ponzi schemes, and an erosion of traditional values like prudence. Overheated? Overwrought? Perhaps. Or maybe he’s just calling a spade a spade. Other people are coming to […]
Read more...Forgive us if we seem to be picking on New York Fed president Timothy Geithner. Actually, not that we know him, but he has a reputation (by Fed standards) for candor. So the problems we have with his speech should not be seen as an attack on him, but on the increasing difficulty of the […]
Read more...Compared to other Fed presidents, Timothy Geithner is straightforward and more than usually willing to talk about bad things. So when he gives a speech that is comparatively upbeat, as he did earlier this week (“Credit Markets Innovations and Their Implications“) it should be reassuring. So why did this speech bother me? It wasn’t as […]
Read more...On Thursday, both Democratic and Republican members of the Senate Banking Committee chewed out Roger Cole, the Federal Reserve’s director of supervision and regulation, for failing to intervene in the rapid rise of the issuance of mortgages to customers who were clearly likely to default, and now are, losing their homes and their investment in […]
Read more...I refrained a day in the hopes that the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times would report on this story, but I again find myself in the position of turning to the Financial Times. This story, “Warning on hedge funds’ conflict of interest,” discusses that international regulators are concerned about hedge funds ability […]
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