Category Archives: Moral hazard

The Moral Hazard of Limited Liability

Some concrete ideas for how to pin the tail of the limited liability donkey back on key insiders, and make regulators accountable.

Quelle Surprise! New Study Confirms that Public Pension Funds Use Flattering Benchmarks to Hide Failure to Beat Simple Indexing; CalPERS Is a Case Study

Documenting yet another way public pensions funds lie to themselves and their many constituencies about their performance.

Robinhood’s Revealing Ad Pitch: We’re All Investors, Alone

The latest Robinhood campaign is more raspberry than rah rah.

Bill Black: The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One (Part 1/9)

Bill Black traces the history of modern American financial fraud starting in this episode with the S&L Banking scandal.

What is the Bullshit Economy?

Establishing some first principles of the bullshit economy.

Guantánamo Prisoner to Joe Biden: ‘The Last Two Decades of My Life Have Been a Nightmare Without End’

Guantánamo is a daming example of American lack of concern over the lives it casually ruins.

Wolf Richter: Who Holds the $1.65 Trillion of Apartment Building Debt amid Eviction Bans and Plunging Occupancy Rates at High Rises?

How much apartment building debt is there, and who holds it?

Big Banks Grow Bigger and Smaller Banks Disappear, As Mergers Return to Crisis-Hit Eurozone

A fresh wave of bank failures and mergers are set to trigger a new round of consolidation of the Eurozone’s banking system

The Bakken Boom Goes Bust With No Money to Clean up the Mess

How the Bakken oil boom, particularly hasty development and transport by rail, was destined to create an environmental hangover…..and no one bothered to prevent it.

“Warren’s Eviction Bill Is Economically and Politically Savvy”

Why Warren’s eviction bill, which calls for a one-year eviction freeze, does not go far enough to save homeowners, tenants, and businesses.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly About the Fed’s New Credit Allocation Policy

Why using credit as an economic remedy evenutally does more harm than good.

Wolf Richter: How Ratings Agencies Inflate Credit Ratings to Get Deals & Fees

Haven’t we already seen this movie? Race to the bottom in gaming credit ratings agencies for commercial real estate Collateralized Loan Obligation deals.

Gene Editing Could Help Save the Planet — If Scientists Can Avoid the Typos

Gene editing does not always work as advertised. And that’s before getting to the fact that genetically modified crops have been found to be less robust than native strains.