watchdog

Bank of America will soon finalize an $8.5 billion agreement to settle investor claims that Countrywide sold them lousy mortgage-backed securities before the housing bust. Meanwhile, private regulator FINRA is angling to take over the watchdog role for registered investment advisers.

Considering how often airline industry executives complain about how hard it is to run a profitable carrier, one might expect their efforts could go unrewarded -- at least monetarily. Not so at the new United Continental Holdings, where big post-merger raises are coming for top management.

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.

Obama's decision to tap Elizabeth Warren as advisor for a new financial watchdog group has raised the ire of consumer and business advocates, who argue that her appointment undercut the goals of clarity and transparency.

While regulators wrestle with how to curb banking bonuses, no one seems to have noticed that women working at London's top 50 banks and finance companies in the City are receiving bonuses worth an average of 80 percent less than their male counterparts. That means men take home about five times...

These days it's getting so you can't tell the consumer watchdogs from the crooks. I've exposed a number of phony do-gooders over the years, and the pretend-watchdog routine runs rampant among competing marketers of junk-products like acai berry supplements and colon cleansers.The way it works: One...

Consumer Reports WebWatch, a well-known watchdog site that detailed web-based scams and schemes and worked to educate consumers about online perils, is being shut down by its parent, Consumers Union, Walletpop,com has learned. WebWatch started eight years ago, and in its early years it was a...