The Committee to Save the Banks Undermined the US led World Order
To say the decision to save the banks was terrible is to understate how profoundly awful the decision was. The first casualty... Read More
Professors Find Transparency Works
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Stumbled across an article by two professors from HEC Lausanne who found the discipline on banks that resulted from greater disclosure resulted... Read More
Lying About the Financial System and the Rise of Populism
Opacity in the financial system has given rise to the return of populism. In early 2009, the Committee to Save the Banks... Read More
The Fog of Accounting
Accounting standards do not guarantee investors will have access to the information they need in order to know what they own. In... Read More
How Risky is Deutsche Bank?
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This week word leaked out the FDIC put Deutsche Bank’s US subsidiary on its list for problem banks. The Fed cited it... Read More
The Great Financial Crisis and the Glass-Steagall Myth
One of the most pernicious myths to emerge from the Great Financial Crisis is the myth had the Glass-Steagall Act separating commercial... Read More
Does Deposit Insurance Promote Excessive Risk-Taking?
The EU is contemplating adopting a European-wide deposit insurance program. The deposit insurance program opponents acknowledge it ends bank runs, but argue... Read More
Can Society Make Finance Servant, Not Master of the Economy?
Since the acute phase of the Great Financial Crisis erupted in September 2008, the response by policymakers has been to save the... Read More
Contagion: A Product of Opacity on Wall Street
Bankers are great story tellers. Perhaps their greatest self-serving story is the one they tell about contagion. By definition, contagion occurs when... Read More
Transparency: Missing from Econ 101 and Finance 101
Since the beginning of the acute phase of the Great Financial Crisis, people like the Pope have championed restoring transparency across the... Read More
“Transparency: a Necessary, but Not Sufficient Condition…”
Late last week, the Pope cited the need for ethical behavior in finance. To achieve this, he called for restoring transparency across... Read More
The Pope, the Information Matrix and Transparency
In a 10,000 word papal encyclical on the global financial system, the Pope looks at who is doing God’s work. He sides with... Read More
Saving the Volcker Rule
To no one’s surprise, Wall Street is about to finish off the Volcker Rule as a constraint on its business practices. The... Read More
Yale Professor: Basically You Don’t Understand the Crisis
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Yale professor Gary Gorton is the gift that keeps on giving. His latest gift was to inform a Wall Street journal reporter... Read More
How Much Influence Should Central Banks Have in a Democracy?
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Paul Tucker asks the question “how much influence should central banks have in a democracy”. My answer is central banks should have... Read More