regulatory capture

There are two ways to explain persistently high corporate profit margins. One interpretation is about inequity, and implicitly about corporatism masquerading as liberty. And the other is about network effects creating an age of winner take…

At least initially, rate increases can be procyclical. Moreover, in this particular cycle, fiscal and regulatory policy are acting procyclically too. That means you need a lot of rate hikes to get a big anti-cyclical effect.

This is a thought piece. And so it’s going to be relatively) brief since I haven’t fleshed out all of my ideas here. But I want to run something by you based on a piece Matt Klein wrote over at FT Alphaville on macro policy. Let me point to…

I knew Charles Keating, the head of Lincoln Savings, in my capacity as a financial regulator and as the subject of his wrath. His fraud schemes and the manner in which they targeted our system’s vulnerabilities in an era before Citizens…

Yesterday, after some intense industry pressure, US regulators (OCC, FDIC, SEC, etc.) collectively announced that the bulk of the so-called TruPS CDO securities issued prior to May 19, 2010 will be exempt from the Volcker Rule. Let's take a…

The culture of fraud in economics is a severe problem, and Harvard is a “hot spot” of that culture.

In the video below, Bill Black argues that the Obama Administration, following in its tradition of not bringing forward criminal prosecutions, decided not to prosecute Goldman Sachs. Bethany McLean argues the other side. The host, Maria…

The imminent passage of the fraud-friendly JOBS Act caused me to reflect on the fact that the worst anti-regulatory travesties in the financial sphere have had broad, bipartisan support. The Garn-St Germain Act of 1982, which deregulated…

The JOBS Act is insane on many levels. It creates an extraordinarily criminogenic environment in which securities fraud will become even more out of control. One of the forms of insanity is the belief that one can “win” a regulatory…

Here's another appearance by Bill Black spoke to RT's Lauren Lyster this past Wednesday about regulatory action in the MF Global case.