Volcker Rule Rewritten to Wall Street’s Exacting Specifications
Under the leadership of the Trump Administration, financial regulators rewrote the regulations enforcing the Volcker Rule. The reason given for this action... Read More
Economists Know Nothing When It Comes to Financial Crises
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While still the Fed chair, Janet Yellen gave an interesting speech on October 14, 2016 in which she pointed out when it... Read More
The Arsonists’, aka The Committee to Save the Banks, New Book: Firefighting
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The Committee to Save the Banks (Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner) is out with a new book defending their mismanagement... Read More
Opacity, Derivatives and Financial Crises
In a terrific article, Pam and Russ Martens highlight why opacity is the necessary condition for a financial crisis and how nothing... Read More
Opacity in the Financial Markets is the Toxic Side Effect of Information Asymmetry
Wall Street bankers know they make more money selling high margin, opaque products (like structured finance securities) rather than low margin, transparent... Read More
Society’s Risk Appetite versus Banks’ Risk Appetite
Two unanswered questions since the beginning of the Great Financial Crisis are how much risk does society want banks to take and... Read More
Economist Susan Strange and the Opacity Protection Team
Have you ever wondered why shortly after the acute phase of the Great Financial Crisis ended transparency wasn’t restored to the opaque... Read More
The Role of Narratives and Transparency in Financial Markets
Trust, but Verify. This elegant expression lies at the heart of how our financial markets work. It also highlights the respective roles... Read More
The Veil of Opacity Is Needed for Bank Scandals to Occur
Why is anyone surprised when bankers engage in misbehavior behind the veil of opacity? They shouldn’t be. In the 1930s, the Pecora... Read More
Fight Over Regulation is One Only Wall Street Can Win
The idea regulations and regulatory enforcement will prevent the next financial crisis is a joke. It completely ignores the fact Wall Street’s... Read More
Anna Schwartz: Saving Banks Won’t End Well
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In an October 2008 Wall Street Journal interview, Economist Anna Schwartz unloaded on the Committee to Save the Banks’ response to the... Read More
Continental Illinois & the Great Financial Crisis
Former Fed chair Paul Volcker recently offered up his view that “we are in a hell of a mess in every direction”.... Read More
The Premature Demise of the Office of Financial Research
I was very surprised by how dramatically the Trump Administration has scaled backed the Office of Financial Research. Why? Doing so reduces... Read More
Disclosure is Today’s Biggest Challenge
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Since the process the SEC uses to set disclosure requirements was captured by Wall Street in the 1990s, issuers have not been... Read More
Bank Troubles: Liquidity or Solvency
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As the Committee to Save the Banks continues its tenth anniversary of the acute phase of the Great Financial Crisis tour, they... Read More