financial reform

Will DC wake up and smell the real economy? more »

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A lot of people in the media are so afraid of offending anyone with controversial truths that they can't even tell the truth about the man whose holiday we're celebrating this weekend. Their coverage could give you the impression that the purpose of Martin Luther King, Jr's life was simply to make everybody in this country feel good about themselves—so good, in fact, that we deserve a day off just for having the wisdom to be born American.

You might be forgiven for thinking that everybody liked and admired Dr. King while he was alive - except maybe for a few angry old white people down South, who later realized the errors of their ways and were very sorry. The media have been so reluctant to convey Dr. King's true message that Glenn Beck can claim to have inherited his mantle and millions of people believe him. They're so afraid of telling his truth that a Pentagon official can claim that the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, the spiritual heir to Gandhi's mantle of nonviolence, would have supported the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Van Helsing: "The strength of the vampire is that nobody will believe in him."

America's debt to Wall Street has soared since 1945 - and although the banks were rescued at public expense, the public's been left holding the bag for the recent drop in housing prices: more »

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This is a joke. Politico is floating the idea that notorious Wall Street crony Rep. Melissa Bean, D-Ill., could be tapped to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau if she loses her close election with Republican Joe Walsh. Even for Politico's rumor-mill, this is pretty funny stuff—only slightly less absurd than suggesting that Alan Greenspan might be picked to head the new agency. more »

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It's been pretty well-documented that the ultimate fate of Wall Street reform will depend on a series of highly technical proceedings at federal regulatory agencies. If regulators adopt tough new rules, the financial overhaul could succeed well beyond the expectations of optimistic reformers. more »

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Wall Street, conventional wisdom has it, likes legislative gridlock. Stock prices tend to go up when Election Day results in the two major parties splitting power. As a USA Today story recently noted, “In the words of many Wall Street analysts and economists: Gridlock is good.” more »

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The New York Times should be embarrassed. This morning, the paper of record published an outrageous hit-piece on Raj Date, one of the most effective consumer advocates in the nation. more »

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Of the universal-policy-bloggers who occasionally wade into financial waters, Matt Yglesias is generally one of the best. But sometimes he's just flat wrong, and his post today on financial profits is one of those times. more »

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A full 90 members of Congress who voted to bailout Wall Street in 2008 failed to support financial reform reining in the banks that drove our economy off a cliff. more »

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A hedge fund manager's "investor letter" - really more of a staged, theatrical tantrum - has been getting a lot of attention lately. Daniel S. Loeb's diatribe demonstrates that banker greed is still out of control, and that it's as short-sighted and destructive as ever. The fact that Loeb is a registered Democrat and former Obama supporter doesn't matter as much as some people think. It's the same old story: Politics is just a means to an end, and the end in this case is self-enrichment.

If Loeb's pose as Hedge Fund Revolutionary seems like a ridiculous form of populism, remember: The Tea Party began with an angry outburst on the Chicago Board of Trade, from traders who were outraged that homeowners might be given a fraction of the aid bankers received. Loeb's letter is mostly a marketing ploy, but if he can become the Robespierre of the Hedge Fund Revolution I'm sure that would be fine with him too. more »

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