Bank stress tests have become a contemporary exercise in “the emperor has no clothes”. Everyone by now (or at least everyone who pays attention) knows that the stress tests are an exercise in confidence building, with emphasis on the “con”.
Read more...The mainstream media and Internet were abuzz with the Big Surprise of the day, the sudden exodus of Citigroup CEO Virkam Pandit, the most overpriced and underperforming CEO in the history of corporate America.
Read more...Andrew Ross Sorkin has a remarkable piece of hogwash masquerading as a story today. His new piece, “Nowadays, Wall Street Saviors May Wish They Weren’t,” blatantly rewrites crisis history claiming that buyers of failed firms were “pressured” by the government do transactions during the crisis and the Big Bad Government got the better of them.
Read more...By Michael Olenick, creator of NASTIACO, a crowd sourced foreclosure document review system (still in alpha). You can follow him on Twitter at @michael_olenick or read his blog, Seeing Through Data
The meaning of the word “chutzpah” varies by context. In criminal court, it might refer to murdering one’s parents then asking for leniency because the perpetrator is an orphan. In family court, it might be invoked when abandoning a child, then pleading the child has been alienated from the parent who left.
We now have a property court usage: perpetrating a massive, well documented fraud then complaining that court bottlenecks – which exist solely because of fraud perpetrated by bank lawyers – cause expensive delays.
Read more...By Rajiv Sethi, Professor of Economics, Barnard College, Columbia University & External Professor, Santa Fe Institute. Cross posted from his blog
Sheila Bair’s new book, Bull by the Horns, is both a crisis narrative and a thoughtful reflection on economic institutions and policy. The crisis narrative, with its revealing first-hand accounts of high-level meetings, high-stakes negotiations, behind-the-scenes jockeying, and clashing personalities will attract the most immediate attention. But it’s the economic analysis that will constitute the more enduring contribution.
Read more...By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives.
Matt Taibbi famously dubbed Goldman “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” Taibbi knew his metaphor worked a deep injustice on Vampyroteuthis infernalis, a small animal that feeds on carrion and excrement (I will let the reader explore the metaphorical possibilities). Goldman Sachs’ leaders were always secretly flattered by Taibbi’s metaphor. They like being thought of as hyper-aggressive and intimidating. Saying that an investment banker’s goal is to make money is to state the obvious and causes no embarrassment.
The news flash is that Goldman Sachs has revealed her new, softer side.
Read more...It’s troubling that some stinging charges against the very biggest names in private equity are getting only passing attention in the financial media.
Read more...There’s an interesting sign of homebuyer champing at the bit to lever up again with all the “housing has bottomed” talk in a New York Times article last week, “Scrutiny for Home Appraisers as the Market Struggles.” The headline signals the new complaint about appraisers: they aren’t rubber stamping deals entered into by willing buyers and sellers! They are therefore holding back the housing market!
While this frustration among housing enthusiasts is a squeaky wheel in the housing market that probably does warrant comment by the Grey Lady, there are more serious market failures in appraisal land that also deserve attention.
Read more...In case you had any doubts about the wisdom of state-level actions to strengthen homeowner rights, the discovery of a new type of abuse, computerized robosigning, should put them to rest.
Read more...By Satyajit Das, a former banker and author of Extreme Money and Traders Guns & Money
Autumn is the time for awards. The EU has received the Nobel Peace Prize! The approximately US$1.2 million should help alleviate the parlous finanial position of the Euro-Zone. But it is also the season for banking awards. Financial magazines and newspapers assign bouquets to the best Finance Ministers, banks and bankers to coincide with the annual World Bank shindig and the approaching year end. Here is an insight into the process.
Read more...This American Banker interview with Sheila Bair has the Republican former regulator describing how Romney isn’t up to speed on Dodd Frank. Not to worry, she also gets a dig in at Geithner too.
Read more...While deathbed conversions might earn you a spot in heaven in some religions, they don’t carry you very far here on Planet Earth.
Christine Lagrade has taken too small a step in the right direction far too late to do much good.
Read more...Via e-mail, some updates from Michael Crimmins, a bank compliance expert and member of Occupy the SEC, on the continuing failure of the media to portray the real significance of the JP Morgan London Whale losses: that it revealed glaring deficiencies in internal controls that warrant prosecution of Jamie Dimon under Sarbanes Oxley.
Read more...Earlier today, El-Erian in the Financial Times released a short and apt note on the limits of the central bank put.
Read more...More than one out of every ten dollars spent this election cycle from mid-April to mid-September has gone to attacking the financial sector.
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