Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
The Obama government has rationalised its failure to prosecute anyone (literally, anyone at all) for bubble-related crimes by saying that while much of Wall St's behaviour was unwise or unethical, it wasn't illegal. What rubbish
Tick-tock on the London Whale fiasco. Jamie Dimon personally authorised the trading strategy that may end up costing JP Morgan $5bn. But he didn't follow closely its execution. Until he noticed the bank was losing $100m a day
JPMorgan Chase is too big to fail; it operates with the implicit backing of the US government. So its recent trading losses should be investigated independently. In the same way as air crashes and near misses are investigated
"I know Dimon isn’t resigning. But maybe someday someone in his position will. And maybe they’ll actually say, 'What I did wasn’t good for America.' And maybe we’ll become a society again, not just an amalgamation of consumers"
"Dimon argued that the financial system could be trusted; that the near-meltdown of 2008 was a perfect storm that would never happen again." Well, it doesn't look that way now, after he was forced to announce huge trading losses
In 2010 Obama passed Dodd-Frank, 2,300 pages of regulation with which to end Wall Street corruption. But world of finance fought back, soon brought government to heel. How? Simple: Complain, sue, stall, bully, then exploit loopholes
Bankers' pay is too high by a factor of three. Which is bad for banks, politically and economically. "By failing to handle a business problem at the proper time, the boards of banks have turned it into a wider social issue" ($)
Former member of Monetary Policy Committee says the Bank of England governor failed to see the 2008 crisis coming, wouldn't listen to dissenting opinions, and should be replaced by an outsider when his term ends next year
Financial sector and rentier partners captured gains, then spent part of these gains on acquiring powerful voice in political process. In courts and academia too. This sacrificing of economies to creditors should be reversed (PDF)
Too many big financial institutions are doing roughly the same thing, and laying off risk on one another. When a shock hits one of them, it hits all of them. To decrease systemic risk, regulators should encourage more diversity
For those whose time is short, he is an elegant summary of Hudson's paper (linked to above) explaining why financial sector creditors should be forced to give up some of the gains they have captured, sought to legitimise
"Financial innovation can make our responses to catastrophes more intelligent. It can channel our gambling impulses into something more constructive and make speculative bubbles less of a problem." It could even reduce inequality
Michael Aston on Flickr
Barney Frank, on JP Morgan's $2bn trading loss
"JP Morgan Chase, entirely without any help from the government has lost, in this one set of transactions, five times the amount they claim financial regulation is costing them"
