Governments in the UK and US have substantial stakes in leading banks. They shouldn’t be deterred by inadequate contractual language in their emergency rescues and infusion of funds during a crisis – they should set some new rules where necessary to protect taxpayers, not incumbent bankers who caused this disaster. The most obvious is to [...]
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Wells Fargo can’t find the checks from mortgage holders, and a judge finds that a problem … Noting that Wells was a big backer of a law change that allows banks to stop returning canceled checks, The NY Times’ Gretchen Morgenson shows what can happen. The bank lost track of payments with the result that [...]
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The Journal has been doing a great job of the inner conflicts – no, not shrink talk, political talk – at Lehman. I think it was The Times the other day that suggested perhaps it is time for Richard Fuld to go, but it’s The Journal which can walk a reader through the last couple [...]
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American politicians were hitting the Sunday morning talk shows assuring the public that Freddie and Fannie, the big government-backed mortgage finance companies, were in fine shape. So it didn’t surprise anyone, did it, when the Monday papers announced new measures to provide them stronger backing from the US Treasury. Are news crews staking out the [...]
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It’s a lot to be proud of, this independent capitalist system that tells the government to get lost. Except when it doesn’t. Headlines yesterday were Fed Chair Ben Bernanke saying the bank will extend its lending facility for investment banks for another couple of months if needed. The Fed is also working with the SEC [...]
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The Fed is reluctantly thinking that it might consider taking action against asset bubbles in future. Chariman Ben Bernanke still says it is hard to determine a bubble. Really? When tech stocks were trading at 50-100X earnings? When people in booming states like California were buying houses at 5-6X their income? When mortgage brokers were [...]
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