Simon Johnson writing in Bloomberg… ~~~”… Still, we should treat the next few weeks as the public-comment phase for potentially serious principles and an opportunity to press for workable details. The big banks, naturally, are already hard at work pushing in the other direction. This is actually good and exactly what we need. The banks [...]
Thursday, January 21, 2010
It’s “Volcker lite“… I’m very interested in any proposal that has the banks whinging like this Bloomberg video of Rob Nichols, the president of the Financial Services Forum… (an excellent rebuttal to Mr. Nichols arguments from the Epicurean Dealmaker) Here is the German CEO of Deutsche Bank commenting on regulations proposed for US financial markets. He doesn’t like them [...]
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Repost from Jesse’s Cafe Americain… ~~~Here is an excerpt from the transcript of Bill Moyer’s Journal of January 8, 2010. “Thanks to taxpayers like you who generously bailed banking from the financial shipwreck it created for itself and for us, by the end of 2009 the industry’s compensation pool reached nearly $200 billion. And despite windfall [...]
Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first inaugural address… Given in Washington, D.C., March 4th, 1933 ~~~ “… There are many ways in which it can be helped, but it can never be helped merely by talking about it. We must act, and act quickly. Finally, in our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a return [...]
Thursday, November 12, 2009
This was one of the most practical papers from the IMF conference last week… the researcher dug into the reports that US lobbyists must file with the Senate to map the outcome of mortgage lending issues that financial firms lobbied on. They show that certain firms lobbied to weaken standards and then went on to [...]
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
The financial system must be substantially reformed and put on a more stable basis. Who will do this? From the Huffington Post… ~~~ “One reason — which has never been directly addressed by Obama — may be that many of his chief financial advisers have pocketed extraordinary amount of money from banks and Wall Street, [...]
Bloomberg made this excellent video about the number of lobbyists for the financial services industry… they detail the number of Washington lobbyists that specific firms have covering the Hill… America… are you listening? Citigroup – 46 lobbyists Chamber of Commerce – 46 lobbyists American Bankers Association – 44 lobbyists Prudential -41 lobbyists SIFMA – 36 lobbyists Managed [...]
Source: Carter McDowell Joins SIFMA Legal and Advocacy Team SIFMA, October 2, 2009 “The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) today announced the hiring of Carter McDowell as Managing Director and Associate General Counsel. Mr. McDowell joins SIFMA from the American Bankers Association (ABA). “Carter will make an excellent addition to our team,” said SIFMA [...]