Waiting For Wall Street to “Pull an OJ” “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” –Joseph Welch, head counsel for the U.S. Army, to Senator Joseph McCarthy; Army-McCarthy Hearings (June 9, 1954) With that one, withering rebuke, Joseph Welch spelled the beginning of the end...Read More
“The Senate’s Muckraker” Against a backdrop of epic Wall Street corruption and captured regulators — just look at the resumes of the top 20 SEC officials, starting with Mary Jo White, nominated by Barack Obama to lead the agency — it’s easy to forget that there also good guys out there. Former Senator Ted Kaufman,...Read More
Double-Standard? And How! If the U.S. government handled the housing crisis the same way it treated Wall Street after the 2008 financial crash (emphasis on “treat”), here’s what would have happened: 1. It would long ago have purchased — at inflated cost(!) — the homes of every underwater homeowner in the country; 2. It would then...Read More
To Open an Account or Not (That is the Question) My son’s Bar Mitzvah (Jewish confirmation, sort of) is rapidly approaching, which means that a slew of checks — many of them from out-of-state relatives — isn’t far behind. Opening a “kid” checking account for him certainly seems like the smart, responsible thing to do....Read More
Day-After Stock Market Drop My sentiments on yesterday’s doings: “the King election is dead over, long live the election.” Yours, too? Besides the so-called “Fiscal Cliff” — now squarely in everyone’s sights — perhaps the markets are signalling displeasure with Elizabeth Warren gaining a high-profile perch from which to pursue mega-banks (that would be a U.S. Senate...Read More
Perils of Gargantuan Banks Not persuaded by my myriad argument(s) on these pages for breaking up Too Big to Fail (“TBTF”) banks? See, “Drug Dealers vs. Bankers: Top Ten Differences”; “Number of the Week: $600 Trillion”; “THAT’S Returning to the Private Sector?!?“; “The Scorpion and the Tortoise Defense“; “Who Pardoned Wall Street?”; “A Financial Gettysburg Address“;...Read More
