If you’ve ever wanted to be a ‘fly-on-the-wall’ in the clubby, heavily wood-paneled board rooms or the glass-encased corner offices of chief executives when the deal is being negotiated, this is it.
The book is interesting, detailed and crammed with an ‘insider’s’ perspective as the drama that precipitated the ‘Great Recession’ unfolded.
Fooling Some of the People All of the Time is the gripping chronicle of that revealing saga. Page by page, it delves deep inside Wall Street, showing how the $6 billion hedge fund Greenlight Capital conducts its investment research detailing the maneuvers of unscrupulous companies, greed-laden executives and the previaling orthodoxies of Wall Street leading up to the precipitation of the 2008 financial crisis. It is a compelling read.
As the economic crisis and the plight of ordinary Americans deepen, the Obama administration is finally beginning to embrace stronger bank and financial industry reforms proposed by courageous refromers such as Paul Volcker, Sheila Bair, Elizabeth Warren, Barney Frank and former NYS Governor, Eliot Spitzer. It’s about time!
Former Federal Reserve Bank Chair, Paul A. Volcker and Chair of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, has beed advocating for more aggressive reform and regulation of the financial industry, but is being resisted by the administration’s top economist – who have strong ties to Wall Street.
Former NYS Governor Eliot Spitzer takes the President and his economic team to task for their light and soft approach to financial industry reform, and their failure to hold large financial corporations accountable for their continued practices that place the nation’s economy in more peril.
Bank lobby and ‘Big Business’ influence-peddling in Washington is at crisis levels that threatens the U.S. Congress’s constitutional duties to protect the ‘public welfare’ all enemies – foreign AND domestic.
Mohamed El-Erian, the highly respected chief portfolio manager for the Harvard Endowment, and currently chief investment officer for the global investment manager, PIMCO notes that the momentum for meaningful financial reform is stalling in spite of clear evidence that financial activities have far outpaced the regulatory infrastructure. And some banks are returning to the bad habits that almost destroyed them.
The powerful Financial industry lobby and Wall Street and community bankers argue that the proposed agency will restrict financial innovation and otherwise inhibit economic growth. Despite such mendacity, Alan Greenspan, the highly respected economist and former Fed Chair endorsed President Obama’s far-reaching proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA).
The Federal Reserve and the Treasury are preparing broad new rules that would force the financial industry to rein in excessive compensation schemes and commission practices that disproportionate made gazzillionaires at the expense of investors and taxpayers out of many financial executives – many just out of college – during the global financial meltdown.
The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, speaking at a Brookings Institute Conference, said Tuesday that it was “very likely” that the recession had ended although he cautioned that it could be months before unemployment rates dropped significantly.
Mon, 14 Sept – President Obama reinvigorated his administration’s effort to reform the financial regulatory system by taking his bare knuckled message directly to Wall Street. Speaking at Federal Hall and using the one year anniversary of the Wall St. collapse the president reminded prominent financial industry executives of their role and risk-taking behavior that led to a global economic melt-down.
According to reports in both the Financial Times of London, as well as the New York Times, the Federal Reserve has made a $14Bn profit on TARP loan programs to struggling banks using tax-payer funds.
Interesting segment by 60 Minutes’ Steve Kroft, in which he walks viewers through the fundamentals of these financial WMDs called Credit Default Swaps which were the derivative products underlying the near collapse of the global financial markets.
The world’s central bankers meeting for an annual Federal Reserve summer symposiun retreat say tougher regulatory reforms and oversight necessary for a full recovery, and agree to keep coordinated interest rates low to help boost global economic recovery.
The New York Times featured an interesting article in today’s paper spotting a trend that more college graduates and corporate professionals are flocking to China in search of greener pasteurs for their careers.