This afternoon, the U.S. Senate passed a sweeping financial regulatory reform bill, overhauling the regulation of everything from the biggest banks to consumer financial products to exotic instruments like credit-default swaps to the derivatives used by farmers. The bill passed 60 to 39.
[Congress1] Earlier on Thursday, Republicans Olympia More…
Today, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission continues its fourth round of hearings on the origins of the recession, with the current and former Treasury secretaries, Timothy Geithner and Henry Paulson, speaking on the shadow banking system — comprising financial companies like Goldman Sachs that are technically not banks because they More…
I’m just starting to dig through an advance copy of “The Promise,” Jonathan Alter’s new book on President Obama’s first year in office, set for publication on May 18. But there are some great nuggets right at the start. Alter describes the chaotic scene at a Sept. 25, 2008, More…
Just a few weeks after Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) requested information from Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner about White House plans to sidestep executive pay limits for bailed out firms (information that still hasn’t been provided), Towns is asking Geithner about his role in Bank of America’s reportedly shady More…
As Weigel pointed out earlier, the GOP appears poised to make a strategy of blaming Democrats — notably Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (Conn.) — for allowing the AIG bonuses that have become so controversial this week.
We pointed out a few reasons earlier today why Dodd More…
When Senate Republicans last week blocked Democrats’ efforts to bail out General Motors and Chrysler, which say they’re near bankruptcy, the White House was quick to swoop in to announce that it would lend the help that Congress didn’t.
Aside from the comedy surrounding that development (the Bush administration’s original More…
It’s not only Democrats who want some answers about the Treasury Dept.’s Wall Street bailout strategy. House GOP leaders are also wondering where all those taxpayer dollars are going — and what good they’re doing.
In a Dec. 3 letter to Treasury Sec. Henry M. Paulson Jr. and More…
Wall Street sure does like the thought of Tim Geithner running the Treasury Dept. next year. (The Dow surged 494 points Friday as the news leaked, and 397 yesterday as the appointment was officially announced.) But, like Sarah Palin before him, the relatively obscure Geithner — who’s headed More…
More from the loquacious Barney Frank, whose patience with Treasury Sec. Henry M. Paulson Jr. appears to be growing thin after the White House yesterday chose to bail out Citigroup, but has still done nothing for struggling homeowners. That decision, Frank said in a statement today…
Bring on the finance regulations.
That’s the message this week from a growing number of Democratic leaders, who are increasingly irritated by the reluctance of the financial industry to put capital it received from the Bush administration’s $700-billion bailout to work.
Lenders not lending. Executives keeping large pay packages. More…
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