Interesting concept... from last week's Business Week:
"Blinder thinks the Fed is being "a little too passive."
He wants the Fed to cut to zero the rate it pays banks on the excess reserves it holds for them. That would remove banks' incentive to park money with the Fed. Even better, says Blinder, the Fed could effectively charge banks for holding their reserves by paying a negative interest rate.
More likely is that Bernanke will keep short-term interest rates, now around 0.25 percent, at that low level for even longer. "It is becoming increasingly likely that the Fed will be on hold until 2013," says Perli.
Showing posts with label financial reform. Show all posts
Showing posts with label financial reform. Show all posts
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Nothing to see, move along... they passed the 'stress test'... Banks ripped US off, news? Verification or Vindication? Remains to be seen.
Confidential Federal Audits Accuse Five Biggest Mortgage Firms Of Defrauding Taxpayers
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/16/foreclosure-fraud-audit-false-claims-act_n_862686.html
"The False Claims Act allows the government to recover damages worth three times the actual harm plus additional penalties."
"The False Claims Act allows the government to recover damages worth three times the actual harm plus additional penalties."
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con...
"Matt Taibbi's unsparing and authoritative reporting on the financial crisis has produced a series of memorable Rolling Stone features. He showed us how Goldman Sachs, that "great vampire squid", played a central role in creating not only the housing bubble but four other big speculative booms that filled its coffers while wrecking the American economy. He explained how Wall Street banks cooked up schemes that helped decimate municipal budgets and cost countless jobs, and how Wall Street lobbying led to a financial reform bill that won't prevent another meltdown. Taibbi builds on that eye-opening work in his new book, Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That is Breaking America, due out from Spiegel & Grau on November 2. In this exclusive excerpt, he describes how our cash-strapped country is auctioning off its highways, ports and even parking meters at fire sale prices — and finding eager buyers in the unregulated sovereign wealth funds of oil-rich Middle Eastern countries."
The financial crisis that exploded in 2008 isn’t past but prologue. The stunning rise, fall, and rescue of Wall Street in the bubble-and-bailout era was the coming-out party for the network of looters who sit at the nexus of American political and economic power. The grifter class—made up of the largest players in the financial industry and the politicians who do their bidding—has been growing in power for a generation, transferring wealth upward through increasingly complex financial mechanisms and political maneuvers. The crisis was only one terrifying manifestation of how they’ve hijacked America’s political and economic life.
Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi here unravels the whole fiendish story, digging beyond the headlines to get into the deeper roots and wider implications of the rise of the grifters. He traces the movement’s origins to the cult of Ayn Rand and her most influential—and possibly weirdest—acolyte, Alan Greenspan, and offers fresh reporting on the backroom deals that decided the winners and losers in the government bailouts. He uncovers the hidden commodities bubble that transferred billions of dollars to Wall Street while creating food shortages around the world, and he shows how finance dominates politics, from the story of investment bankers auctioning off America’s infrastructure to an inside account of the high-stakes battle for health-care reform—a battle the true reformers lost. Finally, he tells the story of Goldman Sachs, the “vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity.”
Taibbi has combined deep sources, trailblazing reportage, and provocative analysis to create the most lucid, emotionally galvanizing, and scathingly funny account yet written of the ongoing political and financial crisis in America. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the labyrinthine inner workings of politics and finance in this country, and the profound consequences for us all.
The dramatic story behind the most audacious power grab in American history
The financial crisis that exploded in 2008 isn’t past but prologue. The stunning rise, fall, and rescue of Wall Street in the bubble-and-bailout era was the coming-out party for the network of looters who sit at the nexus of American political and economic power. The grifter class—made up of the largest players in the financial industry and the politicians who do their bidding—has been growing in power for a generation, transferring wealth upward through increasingly complex financial mechanisms and political maneuvers. The crisis was only one terrifying manifestation of how they’ve hijacked America’s political and economic life.
Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi here unravels the whole fiendish story, digging beyond the headlines to get into the deeper roots and wider implications of the rise of the grifters. He traces the movement’s origins to the cult of Ayn Rand and her most influential—and possibly weirdest—acolyte, Alan Greenspan, and offers fresh reporting on the backroom deals that decided the winners and losers in the government bailouts. He uncovers the hidden commodities bubble that transferred billions of dollars to Wall Street while creating food shortages around the world, and he shows how finance dominates politics, from the story of investment bankers auctioning off America’s infrastructure to an inside account of the high-stakes battle for health-care reform—a battle the true reformers lost. Finally, he tells the story of Goldman Sachs, the “vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity.”
Taibbi has combined deep sources, trailblazing reportage, and provocative analysis to create the most lucid, emotionally galvanizing, and scathingly funny account yet written of the ongoing political and financial crisis in America. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the labyrinthine inner workings of politics and finance in this country, and the profound consequences for us all.
Rolling Stone Expose on Goldman Sachs
"The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who's Who of Goldman Sachs graduates..."
Fantastic "House Advantage" Series from the NYT
Articles in the House Advantage series from The New York Times examine the ways that Wall Street banks can, and often do, gain advantages over their customers. Today’s giant banks not only create and sell investment products, but also bet on those products, and sometimes against them, putting their interests at odds with some of their customers’. The banks and their lobbyists also help fashion financial rules and regulations. And banks’ traders know what their customers are buying and selling, giving them a valuable edge.
Advantage: The Bankers Club — Helping to Write the Rules that Run the Market
A Secretive Banking Elite Rules Trade in Derivatives
In theory, clearinghouses exist to safeguard the integrity of the multitrillion-dollar derivatives market. In practice, they also defend big banks’ dominance.
December 12, 2010Advantage: Financial — Getting Paid on the Upside, but Not Losing on the Downside
Banks Shared Clients’ Profits, but Not Losses
Banks like JPMorgan Chase offer to help big investors like pension funds earn a little extra. When it works, both win. When it doesn’t, only the client loses.
October 18, 2010Advantage: Product Design — Designing Products Then Betting Against Them
Banks Bundled Bad Debt, Bet Against It and Won
Investigators are trying to determine whether banks like Goldman Sachs intentionally sold their clients especially risky mortgage-linked assets.
December 24, 2009Advantage: Price Setting — Controlling the Marks on Investments, With Self-Interest in Mind
Testy Conflict With Goldman Helped Push A.I.G. to Edge
The bank’s demands for billions of dollars from the insurer bled it of cash, which the government later provided.
February 7, 2010 Advantage: Friendly Regulators — Watching Out for the Banks
In U.S. Bailout of A.I.G., Forgiveness for Big Banks
Federal regulators ignored recommendations to force banks that did business with A.I.G. to accept losses.
June 30, 2010Advantage: Ratings Game — How Debt Watchdogs May Have Been Compromised
Rating Agencies Shared Data, and Wall St. Seized Advantage
Trying to be transparent, credit rating agencies made their computer models public, and banks used that knowledge to shape some of the investments involved in the financial crisis.
April 24, 2010 Advantage: Information — Inside Insights Help Protect Banks' Interests, but Leave Clients Behind
Clients Worried About Goldman’s Dueling Goals
The conflicts inherent in having a trading arm have created a wariness toward Goldman Sachs.
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