Category: Banks

Cutting turf: Part 2, the sand traps

18 August, 2009 (10:52) | Banks, Capital markets, Policy, Regulation, Subprime, US News | No comments

[Continued from yesterday's Part 1].
 
Yesterday we met beleaguered Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the Administration’s point person on comprehensive post-catastrophe fundamental financial and regulatory reform, who having attained a position of power finds himself opposed not by his enemies but rather by his ostensible friends, his frustration boiling over as reported in the Wall Street Journal:
 

“You [...]

Cutting turf: Part 1, the driver

17 August, 2009 (13:31) | Banks, Capital markets, Policy, Regulation, Subprime, US News | No comments

Turning slabs of excreta into regulatory fuel

In any new or emerging sector, business innovation always outpaces regulation – experimenting with giddy speed and venturing into that free libertarian space which sounds idyllic until the snakes of corruption slither in. Decadence and wild excess ensue, which is fun when it lasts, and then the world [...]

Jefferson’s curse? Part 2: small means weak

18 November, 2008 (10:19) | Banks, Capital markets, Regulation, Theory, US News | No comments

[Continued from yesterday's Part 1.]

In yesterday’s post, exploring the US’s banking history via a well-reasoned and opinionated Wall Street Journal op-ed by banking historian and essayist/ fulminator John Steele Gordon, we had reached the stage of circling liquidity injections and confidence injections as essential responses to financial crises. 
 

Hold still for the liquidity and confidence
 
It’s [...]

Jefferson’s curse? Part 1: confidence and liquidity

17 November, 2008 (09:25) | Banks, Capital markets, Regulation, Theory, US history | No comments

Chaos ensues when an enterprise’s span of activity is greater than the span of judicial or regulatory consistency. That, at least, is the plausible hypothesis behind the emergence of the FBI, brought into being to chase Bonnie and Clyde across state lines; and Interpol, created to pursue criminals throughout Europe.

Eliot Ness, 1929: you need [...]