The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) – which boasts that it is the “voice of the U.S. securities industry, representing broker-dealers,” Wall Street banks, and others – has relentlessly worked to delay, derail, and kill the Department of Labor’s (DOL) proposed rule to require that the clients’ best interest be put first and […]
“General Electric’s moves to divest most of its real-estate and financial-service assets demonstrate that a key provision in a post-financial crisis law imposing tougher rules on “systemically important” firms’ is working, a key architect of the legislation said on Monday. “It shows that it works, but it also shows that being designated a systemically important […]
Read NY Fed’s report here
Read Better Markets Report entitled “The Cost Of The Wall Street-Caused Financial Collapse and Ongoing Economic Crisis is More Than $12.8 Trillion”
Read the Fact Sheet on Better Markets Report “Setting The Record Straight On Cost-Benefit Analysis And Financial Reform At The SEC”
The paper argues that requiring commercial businesses to post margin does not increase the cost of hedging. In fact, the paper states that the costs for such a transaction is the equivalent for those trades that impose margin as well as providing for a line of credit. John Parsons of MIT and Antonio Mello of the University of Wisconsin School of Business authored the paper, which also details how accounting rules and bank regulators treat the implicit credit charges embedded in these […]
The costs of the Wall Street-created financial collapse and economic crisis have been enormous. Literally trillions of dollars have been spent, lent, pledged, guaranteed or otherwise used to bail out Wall Street, to stop the collapse of the financial system and to prevent a second Great Depression. Sadly, many of those costs continue to this […]
Brussels-based Finance Watch on April 24 released a white paper with recommendations of how to improve the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, which governs European securities trading among member states. The report calls for tougher rules on high-frequency trading because it damages liquidity, such as establishing circuit breakers and requiring firms to provide their algorithm codes and trading audit-trail. It also calls for limits on commodity speculation, including putting individual […]
SEC Commissioner Luis Aguilar on April 11 published a lengthy dissent over the agency’s study on the rights of investors to sue in securities cases that involve foreign exchanges. Aguilar detailed his concern in the aftermath of a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling barring U.S. fraud suits for securities traded on foreign exchanges. Aguilar was displeased that the study, mandated under the Dodd-Frank Act, did not recommend to Congress that it strongly reestablish the right for U.S. investors […]
Former Federal Deposit Insurance Corp Chairman Sheila Bair and a group of academics wrote to Federal Reserve on March 30 urging the central bank to impose tougher capital requirements on the largest U.S. banks. The letter urges the Fed to impose strong capital requirements from firms that will come under enhanced supervision from the Dodd-Frank law, including banks with at least $50 billion in assets and nonbanks that have been deemed as […]
This March 2012 paper analyzes shareholder incentives to change the leverage of a firm that has borrowed substantially. Because of such debt, shareholders typically don’t have incentives to decrease leverage that would make the remaining debt safer. Government subsidies of debt contribute to resistance of such deleveraging. The analysis is relevant to the debate over bank capital regulation, where subsidies favor debt over […]
Two finance professors at the Yale School of Management have issued a report that serves as compilation of books, academic papers and reports chronicling the 2008 financial crisis. Gary B. Gorton and Andrew Metrick selected 16 different documents to provide and overview on what led to crisis, the actions taken when the U.S. economy neared collapse, and the aftermath as policymakers try to prevent it from occurring again. Read the full study here
A new report shows criminal prosecutions for financial crimes have dramatically decreased in recent years even in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis and massive wrongdoing along Wall Street. The report, by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, shows that 1,251 prosecutions were filed during the first 11 months of the last fiscal […]
The Financial Stability Board, an international body established by the G20 to monitor and make recommendations on the international financial system, released a new report on how to better oversee the shadow banking system so it does not pose a global systemic risk. The shadow banking system is represented by non-depository institutions such as hedge […]
This CBO report finds that house income grew much more for the top households than any other group. The study shows that the top 1 percent of housholds saw its after-tax income grow by 275 percent over the last 30 years. By contrast, the bottom 60 percent saw their ernings increase 40 percent, while the […]
Under the rubric of the Committee on International Economic and Policy Reform, a group of academics and former government officials are working on ideas that can further financial reform. Its latest effort examines how to revamp central banking in the aftermath of the financial crisis. An excerpt: The actions needed to achieve price stability, such […]
The Economic Policy Institute’s Larry Mishel takes apart all the myths that regulatory uncertainty is holding back a big crest of business investment and hiring. Unlike proponents of this bogus claim, Mishel uses facts and analysis to make his point. “An examination of current economic trends, and especially what employers are doing in terms of […]
This progress report highlights the work done by international regulators in creating a new framework for bank capital standards. It is expected to require banks to hold a minimum of 7 percent in capital, with the largest institutions having to hold up to an extra 2.5 percent. Here’s the link
The 205 page draft is here: http://cdn.americanbanker.com/media/pdfs/093011VolckerRulePreamble_FINAL_DRAFT.pdf
Bank for International Settlements
Bank for International Settlements
GAO report on Volcker Rule as required by Dodd Frank http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-529
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