Why G20 Should Go the Whole Hog at June Summit By Ramesh Jaura IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis BERLIN (IDN) – As the global financial crisis remains far from resolved and the world’s major currencies continue a roller coaster ride, a sound and safe global financial system appears to be sliding into the …
Focus On This: Merkley-Levin Did Not Get A Vote
By Simon Johnson After 9 months of hard fighting, yesterday financial reform came down to this: an amendment, proposed by Senators Jeff Merkley and Carl Levin that would have forced big banks to get rid of their speculative proprietary trading activities (i.e., a relatively strong version of the Volcker Rule.) …
The Baseline Scenario: The Mystery of Capital
By James Kwak So the dust has settled on the Senate bill, and it remains studiously vague about capital requirements — no hard leverage cap, for example. This is what the administration wanted, for two reasons: first, they claim that regulators need ongoing flexibility to modify capital requirements; second, they …
How Might the Invisible Hand Handle Electronic Money?
The purpose of the paper is to consider how the financial system might change from technology that is introducing new forms of electronic money that by-passes banks, current laws and institutional practices. The introductory first Section identifies the illogical and inefficient features of the existing financial system with an overview …
The Weekly Buzzing Beat at Wall St. Cheat Sheet
More Good Sense from DYLAN RATIGAN via Wall Street Cheat Sheet – Ed. We Need a Value-Creating Society as Opposed to a Value-Extracting Society – with Dylan Ratigan VIDEO: Wall St. Cheat Sheet Top 3 Traders Under 30 on Yahoo TechTicker EXCLUSIVE: Wall St. Cheat Sheet Top 3 Traders Under …
The Baseline Scenario
13 Bankers: Lehrer Newshour Edition – And Another Connection Posted: 16 May 2010 06:20 AM PDT By Simon Johnson On Thursday evening, the Lehrer Newshour ran my discussion with Paul Solman on American financial history and previous attempts to constrain the power of big banks – covering the main points …
More Essential Reading from Simon Johnson and James Kwak
ABA Argues That Black Is White and Must Stay That Way Agreeing on the Problem Thinking About Financial Reform ABA Argues That Black Is White and Must Stay That Way Posted: 17 May 2010 08:49 AM PDT By James Kwak I wasn’t sure if I was going to write about …
The Baseline Scenario: Senator Kaufman Was Right – Our Financial System Has Become Dangerous
Posted: 13 May 2010 02:54 AM PDT By Simon Johnson, co-author, “13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and The Next Financial Meltdown“ Update: link to Senator Kaufman’s speech yesterday Senator Ted Kaufman (D, DE) is best known these days for arguing that, as part of comprehensive financial reform efforts, our …
Bob Monks: economic power is out of control (video)
Bob is continuing to follow the progress of the Dodd Bill, the Goldman Sachs case and hearings regarding the financial crisis. In the new video below he talks about the hearings, financial regulation and SEC enforcement. He is also reading all of your responses so please continue to be in …
A Start Has Been Made With This Senate Bill, But We Still Need a Complete Audit of the Fed – Ed.
The Senate just voted, 96-0, to audit the Federal Reserve. Soon, we will know what the Federal Reserve did with the trillions of dollars that it handed out during the financial crisis.