banks

Reuters reporter Matthew Goldstein has this breaking story: It could take until November 2018 to get the full story behind the U.S. bailout of insurance giant American International Group because of an action taken last year by the…

This post by Bill Black originally appeared at New Deal 2.0. William K. Black is an Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He is a white-collar criminologist and was a senior financial regulator.…

The latest piece of big news in the sovereign debt crisis comes, remarkably, from Iceland. The country collapsed into depression after its experiment as an open economy with a large banking sector went pear shaped. After a debt-fuelled…

For those of you who want specifics. Kleptocracy as defined in Wikipedia: Kleptocracy, alternatively cleptocracy or kleptarchy, from Greek kleptes (thieve) and kratos (rule), is a term applied to a government that takes advantage of…

I don’t know quite what to make of the Paul Volcker interview published late last week in Business Week.  In case you missed it, Business Week published a frank interview of former Federal Reserve Board chairman Paul Volcker with media…

I have been largely silent about the recent populist call to arms by Arianna Huffington and Rob Johnson. The duo advise Americans to withdraw their money from bank accounts at too-big-to-fail financial institutions and deposit them in a…

The New York Times points out that zero percent interest rates are not designed for savers. They are a tax on savers, especially the elderly living on a fixed income. Millions of Americans are paying a high price for a safe place to put…

Below is a partial list of November FDIC enforcement decisions and orders. I have only included cease-and-desist orders, prompt corrective action notices and termination of insurance orders as these are the signs of banking system distress.…

As we head into the New Year, I am trying to look back at the last one with some semblance of a coherent interpretation of events that leads to a strategic vision of the future.  I have already touched on stimulus, kleptocracy and…

Before the Christmas break, I wrote a post to tie together my thoughts on why I have found the Obama economic program so unsatisfying despite some obvious success in stabilizing the economy. This first part framed the status quo as an…