Mike Konczal Talks FinReg on The Breakdown
by ilene - July 23rd, 2010 6:05 pm
Mike Konczal Talks FinReg on The Breakdown
By Joseph Lawless, courtesy of New Deal 2.0
Now that Obama has signed FinReg into law, Roosevelt Institute Fellow Mike Konczal appeared on The Breakdown with Chris Hayes yesterday to discuss the bill. Confused about the entire financial meltdown? Mike’s got you covered. He breaks the crisis down into four interconnected sectors: an exploitative, under-regulated system of consumer finance; dark markets in derivatives; the failures of “too big to fail” banks and the ripple effects they caused; and shadow banks that were able to avoid regulations (and also lacking, as Mike says, the “toilet training” necessary to behave).
These four sectors will also be the basis used for grading the potency of the bill. And as Mike notes, while it offers opportunities for some much-needed changes, it still falls short in several areas.
Listen to the audio file on the Original Page.
And check out some of Mike’s latest pieces on ND20:
How HAMP Makes Elizabeth Warren The Only Choice For Consumer Protection
Treasury versus Progressives on the Financial Reform Bill
Underwater Mortgages and the Odd Definition of the Experian Study
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Lehman’s Liar’s Loans and Other Cons
by ilene - April 24th, 2010 2:04 am
Lehman’s Liar’s Loans and Other Cons
Courtesy of MIKE WHITNEY at CounterPunch
Prof. William Black submitted a 24-page report on the Lehman bankruptcy to the House Committee on Financial Services on Tuesday. It is the best analysis of the underlying causes of the financial crisis to date. Black, who is a former government regulator and white-collar criminologist, shows that the crisis was not an unavoidable disaster, as Wall Street apologists suggest, but the result of large-scale fraud perpetrated by financial institutions like Lehman Brothers. The incidents of fraud were numerous, blatant, extreme and premeditated. In making his case against Lehman, Black exposes the omissions, failures and negligence of the primary regulators, particularly the Fed. Had the Fed not been derelict in its duties, the cyclical downturn would not have turned into a near-Depression.
"Lehman’s failure is a story in large part of fraud," Black said in his testimony before the House. "Lehman was the leading purveyor of liars’ loans in the world. For most of this decade, studies of liars’ loans show incidence of fraud of 90per cent. … If you want to know why we have a global crisis, in large part it is before you."
As the Litigation Director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board during the S&L crisis, Black knows what he’s talking about. He was so dogged in his investigation that Charles Keating "directed his chief political fixer that his ‘Highest Priority’ was to ‘Get Black … Kill him Dead.’” But Black didn’t buckle or give ground. He shrugged off the threats and continued to expose unsound practices and illegal activity. His team faced the same challenges that regulators face today, "elite frauds" by powerful institutions that wield tremendous political power.
Black’s statement cuts through much of the ideological claptrap surrounding the crisis and shows that deregulation is really the decriminalization of fraud. The notion that the market can "regulate itself" has been jettisoned altogether and public support for reform is gaining momentum.
"It is insane to withdraw accountability for negligence," says Black. "Doing so encourages negligence."
Financial institutions have used "laisser faire" dogma for their own aims. It’s the mask behind which the voracity and predations remain hidden. To a large extent, that’s the story of Lehman, an institution that paid no attention to rules and regulations. Anything went. It’s a philosophy that was embraced by the nation’s chief regulator,…
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the site