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Last Entry: March 31, 2011 at 14:13:05

Baltimore City's Reverse Redlining Lawsuit Against Wells Fargo

Posted on August 05, 2009
In a letter ruling dated July 2, 2009, Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland Benson Everett Legg issued an order denying Wells Fargo's motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the City of Baltimore....

Speculation - Nothing New!

Posted on August 04, 2009
LATHAM SMITH, YE OUTSIDE FOOLS! GLIMPSES INSIDE THE LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE By Erasmus Pinto, Broker (1877) http://www.archive.org/details/yeoutsidefoolsgl00smitrich " Just as in racing, one alone can win, but still all hope to win, and hug the narcotizing hope, so in the...

A Private Bailout for CIT

Posted on August 03, 2009
Last month, the government turned down the bailout plea from the nation's largest small business lender, CIT. Pundits said it was not quite too big to fail. Here's a link to Harvard Business Publishing's article describing both FDIC's rejection of...

Economists Discuss Potential for "Double Dip" -- and they're not talking about ice cream!

Posted on August 03, 2009
Bloomberg reports that banks like JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank are forecasting U.S. growth in the next few quarters. On the other hand, Nobel Laureate Edmund Phelps says the U.S. economy will have a "long slog" to recovery. Nobel Laureate...

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Interesting Reading from Andrew Cuomo

Posted on August 01, 2009
Link to "No Rhyme or Reason: The 'Heads I Win, Tails You Lose' Bank Bonus Culture": http://www.oag.state.ny.us/media_center/2009/july/pdfs/Bonus%20Report%20Final%207.30.09.pdf (ag) Aug. 1, 2009, in Economy, Executive Compensation

American Express Buys Out the Government

Posted on July 30, 2009
American Express repurchased the last of the TARP warrants for $340 Million, yielding a return on taxpayer investment of 26% on an annualized basis. When Goldman Sachs repurchased the last of its TARP warrants, the annualized yield to taxpayers was...

Congress Will Have to Develop a Back Bone to Get Past Turf Wars

Posted on July 30, 2009
NPR attributes delays in regulatory reform legislation to turf battles among the Federal Reserve, the OCC, and the FDIC. I'm not surprised about that -- it's business as usual: One part substance, three parts "enlarge and preserve my territory." Can....

Why Unbridled Capitalism Needs Reasonable Restrictions -- And Some Memory Aids

Posted on July 29, 2009
How soon they forget! We're still in the middle of a Wall-Street induced recession, yet the hue and cry goes up from the very entities who benefited from bailouts that government should get out of their business. If these were...

Wake Up and Smell the Roses -- or Whatever -- at OCC!

Posted on July 28, 2009
I continue to be appalled but not surprised that Comptroller John Dugan can still argue against state consumer protections because the costs "will be ultimately be borne by consumers." As if consumers are not bearing the costs of the OCC's...

Getting Past Too Big To Fail

Posted on July 27, 2009
John Kay's July 21, 2009 FT.com article, "Too Big To Fail: Wall Street We Have A Problem," presents the case for making complex systems -- like the U.S. and global financial structures -- robust. He draws on engineering wisdom that...

An Aggressive Timetable for Regulatory Reform

Posted on July 27, 2009
Congress is diligently holding hearings and the Treasury Department urges passage of financial regulatory reform by year end. We need reform, no doubt about it. However, there are many plans on the table and no consensus. If Congress acts in...

Bribe 'Em to Save?

Posted on July 26, 2009
Good grief! FDIC is having a meeting to discuss how to encourage "prize-linked savings accounts" for underserved and low income consumers. Some of these programs are described as being like a lottery pool, giving savers a "chance" to win big...

No More Too Big To Fail

Posted on July 25, 2009
FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair testified Thursday before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affiars. I could not agree more with her view that "too big to fail" is a concept we need to dispense with. "We must find...

SEC Uses Sarbanes Oxley "Clawback" Provisions

Posted on July 24, 2009
Section 304 of the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX), referred to as the "clawback" provision because it authorizes a company to get back certain executive bonuses and stock profits, states that: "If an issuer is required to prepare an...

Hey Noah, There's a New Q&A on Flood Insurance

Posted on July 24, 2009
The federal banking agencies have published a new set of Questions and Answers on Flood Insurance. This may sound mundane in comparison to issues relating to the financial crisis and proposed restructuring of the nation's regulatory framework, but let me...

The U.S. Treasury and Bernie Madoff - Separated at Birth?

Posted on July 22, 2009
The U.S. Treasury Department is racking up serious criticism for its administration of the $700 Billion bailout of the financial system. Michael Crittenden's July 21,2009, Wall Street Journal article entitled "U.S. Treasury Criticized Sharply on Watchdog Report," quotes U...

Summer Reading about the Financial Crisis

Posted on July 21, 2009
Here's a link to a New York Times book review of IN FED WE TRUST: BEN BERNANKE'S WAR ON THE GREAT PANIC by David Wessel. He's the Wall Street Journal's Economics Editor. I love this quote from the book: "?Every...

Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission

Posted on July 17, 2009
Congress has named a 10-member Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to investigate the domestic and global causes of the financial crisis, including studying financial institutions that failed. A report from the commission is due December 15, 2010. House and Senate Democrats...

Financial Calculators and Other Info from FINRA

Posted on July 16, 2009
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) is the largest independent regulator for all securities firms doing business in the U.S. This industry self-regulatory body was formed in 2007 through consolidation of NASD (the National Association of Securities Dealers) and the...

Causes and Cures: Why Did the Financial Crisis Develop and How Can We Prevent Future Crises?

Posted on July 15, 2009
Donald Kohn, Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, gave a speech to the BIS Annual Conference on "Financial System and Macroeconomic Resilience Revisited" in Basel, Switzerland, that is definitely "economist-speak." Nevertheless, if you can slog through it,...

Regulatory Disputes Over Restricting the Size of Our Biggest Financial Institutions

Posted on July 15, 2009
Today's Bloomberg news story by Craig Torres and Alison Vekshin, "Bair, Bernanke Want Tougher Curbs on Biggest Banks," highlights the differences of regulatory opinion over future restrictions on the largest financial institutions. FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair and Federal Reserve Chairman...

Alive and well, maybe. . . . . . at FinCEN

Posted on July 15, 2009
Just when I was beginning to think the whole agency had gone AWOL, three new items appeared from FinCEN - two not so interesting and one to consider: 1. Director Freis gave a very basic talk to the Association of...

American Banker ViewPoint Articles on Supreme Court Preemption Opinion

Posted on July 14, 2009
We'd rather litigate than adopt consumer protections. That's what some of these opinion pieces are saying, including today's American Banker article by Cheyenne Hopkins, "A Preemption of Clarity," a collection of remarks by lawyers. Of course, one or two comments...

FinCEN MIA??

Posted on July 13, 2009
If you check the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) website, you won't find a lot of current substance. There are three links to statements justifying all the paperwork involved in filing Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs): "Bank SARs Lead to Discovery...

Partisan Politics - Fiddling While Rome Burns

Posted on July 13, 2009
It's political-grandstanding-as-usual in Washington. My grandmother's phrase for this was "just talking to hear your teeth rattle." When issues facing all of us in this country are so complex, why can't our elected officials work together for positive solutions? That's...

What Happens to Restructured Loans and Bank Capital

Posted on July 12, 2009
One-to-four-family mortgage loans usually have a risk-weighting of 50% for purposes of calculating a bank's capital requirements. Once they're restructured, they receive a risk-weighting of 100%. Banks suddenly need a lot more capital to balance these assets that have been...

Reworking Second Mortgages

Posted on July 11, 2009
Under the Home Affordable Modification Plan (HAMP), banks may begin working with Treasury to refinance second mortgages, including home equity loans, into a government-subsidized program. This part of the HAMP could get up and running in August. Texas lawyers will...

When Agencies Combine: Lessons from the Federal Housing Finance Agency

Posted on July 09, 2009
It's been a year since GSE oversight was reconfigured. Previously, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was responsible for affordable housing goals for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, while Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight was responsible for...

FASB Combats Disclosure Overload

Posted on July 09, 2009
Really. That's what the July 8, 2009, announcement from the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) said. Robert H.Herz, FASB Chairman discussed a new project to make financial statements more effective, coordinated, and less redundant. "Many constituents have expressed concerns about...

SEC, Corporate Governance, and Executive Compensation

Posted on July 08, 2009
The Securitis and Exchange Commission voted to propose two new rules relating to Executive Compensation. Each proposed rule has a 60-day Comment Period following publication in the Federal Register. 1. Proposed Rule requiring public companies receiving money from the Troubled...

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