In the past, the Fed believed it had no business trying to deflate asset bubbles -- even though when they pop, they can wipe an economy out almost overnight. But a speech made by recently appointed Federal Reserve Governor Jeremy Stein suggests that policy may be about to change.
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission's report concludes that ineffective regulators and big banks were the primary causes of the financial meltdown. Next stop: Government and class action lawsuits to recoup some of what we all lost, and (please please please) criminal charges against the worst offenders too.
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission had planned to publish its findings in book form with Little, Brown. But the unusual deal between the two, which involved an advance payment from the publisher, has fallen apart, and PublicAffairs Books has stepped in as the new publisher.
Two crashes in recent years are bad enough, but investors are also facing high-frequency traders, bearish insiders, less-than-honest corporate self-portrayals and a moribund mortgage market. It's no wonder they've lost confidence in the nation's equity markets.
The mortgage-backed securities meltdown whose effects still haunt our economy sprang from a simple cause: The rules of the game gave big incentives to every player involved to ignore the problems and keep collecting their fees. And despite financial reform, those rules haven't changed much.
The financial crisis was produced by a complex set of circumstances, including a massive housing bubble, poor regulation and irresponsible lending on an epic scale. A handful of bankers became the public faces of the crisis, and now, two years later, we take a look at what became of them.
The former CEO of Lehman Brothers, Richard Fuld, blames the firm's collapse on hedge funds and short sellers that bet on declines in Lehman's stock price. That explanation may be satisfying for Fuld, but there's one problem -- it's probably not true.
In a response to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, Goldman said it priced AIG's collateral on the best available market information.
Executives of Goldman Sachs were grilled by members of an inquiry panel Thursday on the firm's full recovery of billions in debt in 2008 from crippled AIG, for which U.S. taxpayers footed the bill.
While defending the rating agencies last week before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, Warren Buffett also admitted, "I don't need them." It seems that more and more, the financial markets are coming to agree with Buffett's stance on ratings.
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission's subpoena of Goldman Sachs for documents has thrust the beleaguered firm back in the spotlight. And now even a bullish top analyst is calling for CEO Blankfein to be replaced.
Next week, Warren Buffett will give his expert opinion about the causes of the 2007 Wall Street meltdown to the government's Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. But will the Oracle of Omaha's testimony be objective, or will it be slanted to benefit his own mammoth investments?
