California bankruptcy ruling a precedent for Detroit Public Schools The Detroit News, July 31, 2009
Detroit — Detroit Public Schools, facing a $259 million deficit and diminishing cost-cutting options, has a recent California court ruling on its side as officials weigh Chapter 9, experts say.
Chapter 9, a rarely used form of municipal bankruptcy, could allow [...]
MAPLight.org…
The site uses three data sets to create a detailed picture that illustrates money’s influence over elected officials:
campaign contributions
voting records and the
supporting and opposing interests of a bill
For example…
~~~ “Government Transparency Tool, Money Near Votes, Zooms in on Banking Industry Contribs given w/in 2 wks of Credit Card Bill Vote“~~~
(HT HuffPo)
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
I’m attending a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee today.
Ben Bernake and Paul Volcker will testify to the House of Representatives on “Examining the Link Between Fed Bank Supervision and Monetary Policy.”
I have a fundamental question about how the Federal Reserve separates it’s oversight and dealings with Wall Street from it’s public stewardship of the nations economy.
This is [...]
I’m planning to write about the new Senate draft of legislation but I wanted to bring up the general lack of discussion in the Congress about the findings of the Lehman Examiner.
The failure of Lehman represented the largest corporate failure ever (over $600 billion dollars), triggered a global financial meltdown and was exactly the [...]
The Huffington Post has a visual aid, put together by the Consumer Federation of America, that shows how a Consumer Financial Products Agency would consolidate the federal laws that relate to retail products…
Click on the image for a larger version…
More on Lehman, AIG and repo from Riski…
I did want to point out that the Lehman Examiner (Jenner and Block) cost the estate $38 million dollars for their work… in contrast the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which is tasked to examine the entire financial meltdown, has a budget of $8 million…. it is really shameful how [...]
Bond insurance down to 5% of new issues from 50%…
BABs have reduced supply…
Are credit ratings to be trusted?
Municipal revenues has declined…
“We don’t expect the muni market to collapse…”
From Michael Greenberger, former CFTC General Counsel, at the Make Markets Be Markets conference. (HT Credit Risk Chronicles)
Pending Derivatives Legislation and Legislative Proposals
The Obama Administration White Paper
In response to the catastrophic systemic failure caused by unregulated derivatives, the Obama Administration in its June 2009 White Paper proposed that all standardized OTC derivatives be subject to clearing and [...]
Repost from Chris Whalen’s Institutional Risk Analyst:
~~~ “… Thus we extend and pretend, a policy choice that ensures years of economic stagnation and perhaps even a new financial crisis when non-bank financial institutions start to fail due to ZIRP and the related predations of OTC derivatives. The Fed argues that the large banks cannot be restructured because [...]
Friday, February 26, 2010
Transparency creates stability in financial markets… this is a foundational precept of our system but is rarely argued… the following is from a speech by CFTC Chairman Gensler to the “Energy Bar Association” on February 24th…
~~~ Transparent Trading Requirement
“… It is not enough, though, simply to promote transparency to the regulators.
Financial reform will be incomplete [...]