This morning, President Barack Obama plans to officially announce that Elizabeth Warren — Harvard Law professor and the current head of the Congressional Oversight Panel over the Troubled Asset Relief Program — will head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
[Congress1] Well, sort of. After months of will-he-or-won’t-he speculation by journalists, More…
National People’s Action and the Public Accountability Initiative are up with a report on financial links between payday lenders, Main Street banks and Wall Street banks. “While small businesses and individuals have struggled to get affordable loans in the wake of the taxpayer bailouts, payday lenders have received new More…
After facing a barrage of attacks aired by outside right-wing groups, Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) is getting a bit of help in his Senate race in the form of a riposte, paid for by the AFL-CIO, against former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.):
Back in the 1990s, companies like eTrade and the big banks democratized stock investing: Anyone, anywhere could purchase an index fund for a long-term investment or try to make a buck day trading. Stocks became sexy, and young individuals flooded into the market. Now, young people with cash in More…
Today, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission — the bipartisan panel examining the causes of the financial crisis that plunged the country into recession — is up with another round of hearings. The FCIC is due to complete a comprehensive report, à la the Pecora Commission that studied the 1929 More…
From The New York Times this morning:
“As every student of American history knows, this country’s core founding principles included nonpunitive taxation, constitutionally guaranteed protections against persecution of the minority and an inexorable right of self-determination,” [one hedge fund manager] wrote.
ProPublica and NPR’s Planet Money are up with a great investigation into how banks sustained demand for risky mortgage-backed securities, even as the housing market started to falter and the number of companies available to take the long side of the trades started to dwindle. They, in essence, made More…
Former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) is getting some help from his old friends today. The Club for Growth, a conservative anti-tax organization founded by Wall Street investors, announced a new 30-second ad today that will air statewide in Pennsylvania and attack Toomey’s opponent, Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) as “very liberal.” More…
Seems like just yesterday liberals were the ones calling for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s head. Now that House Minority Leader John Boehner has spoken, however, Geithner’s become a figurehead on the right for what Boehner is calling, “19 months of government-as-community organizer. It hasn’t worked. Our fresh start More…
Today, there are two stories worth reading on the nexus of big finance and education. The first, in The Chronicle of Higher Education, reports that Nelnet — a Nebraska-based lending conglomerate — Sallie Mae, and other lenders will pay fines for defrauding taxpayers out of $1 billion:
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