LIBOR scandal(s) revisited
Much has already been written about how a substantial number of banks have manipulated and misrepresented their LIBOR submissions for their economic benefit. But thus far, the conversation surrounding...
View ArticleThe 99 Percent Solution
Four years ago this month, the world’s financial sector exploded, shooting shrapnel through the economy. Wounds fester to this day. Last year this month, public outrage at Wall Street and general...
View ArticleScore One for Wall Street: Court strikes down Dodd-Frank rule on oil...
Excessive speculation on oil and other commodity markets is driving up prices for consumers. Goldman Sachs has suggested that speculation increases the price of a gallon of gas by 65 to 70 cents....
View ArticleBear Stearns suit a praiseworthy first step for Schneiderman task force
First steps are finally being taken to hold one of the Big Banks accountable for its role in causing the economic collapse. A joint federal and state task force, led by New York Attorney General Eric...
View ArticleTower of Basel
With a simple albeit ambitious decision, Wall Street regulators have a way to all but guarantee that there will be no more financial sector bailouts: require substantial at-risk equity investment. On...
View ArticleA Man, a Plan, a Canard
House Republicans claim that banks’ efforts to comply with Wall-Street-reform paperwork will require more labor than it took to dig the Panama Canal. They’re way wrong. Wall Street’s Washington...
View ArticleAnother JPMorgan Travesty
Let’s say you run JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s mortgage department, and you’ve just settled a massive lawsuit that claims you forged documents in foreclosure proceedings. You’ve agreed to identify...
View ArticleI bought stock in HSBC and all I got was this lousy $1.9 billion fine
Flickr photo by Will Survive Who, precisely, will pay the $1.9 billion fine that international mega-bank HSBC has agreed to pay in order to settle charges with the government that it illegally...
View ArticleEuropean Union moves towards financial speculation tax: Why U.S. should follow
Note: In the 112th Congress, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) introduced the Wall Street Trading and Speculators Tax Act. The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation said the...
View ArticleThree magic words for a Wall Street lobbyist: “innovation,” “complexity” and...
“Innovation.” “Complexity.” “Liquidity.” You, too, can be a successful Wall Street lobbyist simply by using these three words randomly in conversations. In Washington, deploy these words in any debate...
View ArticleFreshman Democrats Fail First Exams on Wall Street Reform
Republicans on the House financial services committee have long been a cheap date for Wall Street. So it was no surprise that they voted unanimously on May 7 in favor of nine bills to eviscerate...
View ArticleHolder Colder but still Hot
In December 2012, federal prosecutors failed to bring true justice to HSBC for massive, criminal money laundering because the giant UK bank was too big. An indictment, they thought, would ravage the...
View ArticleWe talked last week, did you miss it?
Last week my colleague Rick Claypool and I hosted our second online conversation with Public Citizen activists. Thanks to everyone who tuned in! Here’s the video in case you weren’t able to make it: In...
View ArticleSummers’ deserved disqualification from Fed chair
It is profoundly fitting that Larry Summers was knocked out of the running for Fed Chair on the fifth anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Summers is one of the grand architects of the...
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