Financial reform

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Brain drain to Wall Street: Goldman Sachs hires ‘God particle’ physicist

James Pethokoukis | May 16, 2013, 12:58 pm

Apparently there is a pipeline leading from Europe’s CERN, the world’s largest particle physics laboratory, to Wall Street (via HuffPo): Ryan Buckingham, a particle physicist with a PhD from Oxford University, spent three and a half years at CERN before joining Goldman Sachs in … read more >

Economics, Financial Services, Pethokoukis

So now we know how Bernanke would break up the megabanks

James Pethokoukis | May 10, 2013, 12:03 pm

If you think the way to deal with too big/interconnected to fail/manage is by breaking up the megabanks, you have three basic options: 1) cap their size, 2) restructure them, 3) make them raise gobs of equity capital. In a … read more >

Pethokoukis

Will Paul Ryan endorse breaking up the megabanks?

James Pethokoukis | May 8, 2013, 10:36 am

The Republican Party’s 2012 vice presidential candidate: Banks are getting really big, and they are using the value of their insured deposits to go do other things that are really not banking and jeopardizing the stability of the system. … … read more >

Credit: Stuart Gabriel, Matthew Kahn, Ryan Vaughn

Economics, Financial Services, Pethokoukis

A study in crony capitalism: Subprime lenders offered better deals to borrowers in districts of congressional big shots

James Pethokoukis | May 6, 2013, 11:17 am

UCLA researchers have found that leading up to the Financial Crisis, subprime lenders employed a novel method of influencing the political process. In addition to campaign contributions to key politicians, they gave special treatment to borrowers represented by key congressional … read more >

Economics, Financial Services, Pethokoukis

Washington finally waking up to Dodd-Frank’s failure

James Pethokoukis | May 6, 2013, 9:42 am

A stunning note this morning from ace banking analyst Jaret Seiberg of Guggenheim Washington Research Group. Some of the key points (bold is mine): We believe it is now close to inevitable that regulators will adopt measures that go beyond … read more >

Economics, Financial Services, Pethokoukis

Fed governor outlines ‘another alternative for the break-up-the-megabank crowd’

James Pethokoukis | May 3, 2013, 2:27 pm

Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarullo is the central bank’s regulation guy and has been giving some provocative speeches exploring how to end Too Big To Fail and reduce systemic risk. In a speech today, he suggests linking the amount of … read more >

Pethokoukis

Cato’s weak critique of Brown-Vitter

James Pethokoukis | April 25, 2013, 1:48 pm

Cato’s critique of the Brown-Vitter TBTF, BUBB bill is confusing to me. 1.Cato assumes the goal is to prevent a repeat of the Financial Crisis. I see it as an effort to prevent a financial crisis, or at least protect … read more >

Economics, Financial Services, Pethokoukis

Senators Brown and Vitter offer a smart and simple plan to end Too Big To Fail

James Pethokoukis | April 25, 2013, 10:06 am

Banks used to have huge safety cushions, equity capital somewhere in the order of 20% to 30% of assets. Government didn’t tell them to do that. Those levels reflected what depositors and investors demanded. Then came a century of government … read more >

Economics, Financial Services, Pethokoukis

What Tim Johnson’s retirement will mean for ending ‘too big to fail’ and reforming the megabanks

James Pethokoukis | March 26, 2013, 10:24 am

National Journal’s Catherine Hollander throws cold water on the idea that the recent nonbinding 99-0 vote to end “too big to fail” will result in a new wave of financial reform that will cap, shrink, or restructure the megabanks. She … read more >

Economics, Financial Services, Pethokoukis

The ‘break up the big banks’ movement inches forward …

James Pethokoukis | March 19, 2013, 2:44 pm

The WSJ’s Heard on the Street suggests that as the recovery strengthens and lengthens, the risk to mega-banks rises: There is growing talk among regulators, for example, of forcing banks to issue a minimum amount of long-term debt, cap the … read more >