Politico has a piece running through the number of former Hill staffers-turned-lobbyists that hedge funds have hired to ensure that financial regulatory reform does not encroach on their businesses or slim their profits:
Hedge fund managers, Weissman said, are in the business of using inside information to make money,
Yesterday evening, Senate Democrats began the procedural endgame to their push to reform the regulation of the financial sector. In a 57-41 final vote, with Democrat Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.) joining Republicans in opposition (and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) switching his final vote for procedural reasons), the Senate failed More…
The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, headed by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), held its third hearing on the financial crisis today, and up to bat were the credit ratings agencies. These companies — just three players, Moody’s, Fitch and Standard & Poor’s, dominate the market — take financial products issued More…
Kerry Killinger was the chairman and chief executive officer of Washington Mutual, the $300 billion savings-and-loan organization, from 1990 until 2008. During his tenure, he made more than $100 million in compensation, including more than $14 million in 2007 and $21 million in 2008 — granted for More…
On Friday, The Wall Street Journal revealed that major Wall Street banks regularly use repurchase-agreement, or repo, transactions to reduce their debt levels and leverage shortly before reporting their quarter-end data. The revelations came after the Valukas Report showed that failed investment bank Lehman Brothers used a type of More…
Speaking to the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress last night, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke went back to his academic roots. The longtime Princeton economic historian, who specializes in the study of the Great Depression, cited the “passivity” of policymakers during the 1930s as central More…
This morning, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission heard from Robert Rubin and Charles Prince, the former heads of banking behemoth Citigroup.
Prince opened his remarks with regrets. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry the financial crisis has had such a devastating impact for our country. I’m sorry about the More…
A new ABC News poll asks what Americans have to say about the newest economic villains — banks — as they return to profitability well ahead of America’s burgeoning unemployed population. There are few surprises there: The vast majority of people don’t believe the banks have done enough More…
A new report from the Treasury Department — the last of its kind — shows that despite all the regulation-avoiding PR campaigns, new loans at the nine largest banks that still owe bailout funds to the government dropped by 35 percent in January.
The nine banks
With Obama’s much-vaunted mortgage modification program all but deemed a failure — one million applications have resulted in 31,000 modifications in the $75 billion program — the administration is set to embark on a new phase in its project to resolve the ongoing mortgage crisis. That phase involves More…
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