Sizing Up Financial Reform To Date* No, I haven’t been commenting on the Lehman Bros. bankruptcy expose, which has been a big deal in the financial blogosphere the last week or so. Having declined to read the entire 2,000-plus page study, my quick take is that everything people suspected that Lehman did, it actually did...Read More
Wall Street Who-Dunnit: No One?? Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan. –John F. Kennedy Hurricane Katrina was an act of nature. The economy’s Wall Street-triggered financial collapse is not. If and when anyone is actually held accountable for that, you can expect to hear variants (combinations?) of the following defenses. (Im)plausible...Read More
Is it Too Late to Bail Out Enron?? [Note to Readers: I originally published the following post in mid-December. At that time, the cumulative federal bailout bill was about $2 trillion. Including guarantees of dubious bank assets, that number now is closer to $4 trillion — $173 billion of which has been pumped into just...Read More
Is it Too Late to Bail Out Enron?? “Supreme Court Overturns Bush v. Gore”–Headline; The Onion (12/9/2008) Watching what’s going on in Washington and on Wall Street, the Enron guys must be turning over in their . . jail bunk beds. Consider the following: –The audited financial statements of AIG, Citigroup, Bear Stearns, etc. obscured...Read More
