Free Republic

One may be forgiven to believe that via its FX liquidity swap lines the Fed only bailed out foreign Central Banks, which in turn took the money and funded their own banks. It turns out that is only half the story: we now know the Fed also acted in a secondary bail out capacity, providing over $350 billion in short term funding exclusively to 35 foreign banks, of which the biggest beneficiaries were UBS, Dexia and BNP. Since the funding provided was in the form of ultra-short maturity commercial paper it was essentially equivalent to cash funding. In other words,...

If you haven't been humming tunes from "Les Misérables," you haven't seen "Inside Job," the new documentary about how our economic crisis evolved. The most forgiving American will want to seize a pitchfork and march on Wall Street. Or Harvard Square. Or in front of the White House. There are so many despicable parties, it's hard to pick a favorite. Is it time to reconsider the Axis of Evil? The film, written and directed by Charles Ferguson (and narrated by Matt Damon), will be opening in select cities this week. Although much of the story is familiar, Ferguson manages to...

Banks and bankers are now potential targets for the Real IRA, leaders of the dissident republican terror group have warned in an exclusive interview with the Guardian. Despite having only 100 activists they also said that targets in England remained a high priority.

Bankers urge gov't to pull plug on Fannie, FreddieBy Corbett B. Daly Published September 08, 2010 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The federal government should take mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac off life support sooner rather than later, the Mortgage Bankers Association urged Wednesday. The bankers said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should move beyond the "conservatorship" that started two years ago and be placed "receivership." "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have already moved well beyond the points where any other financial institution would have been put into receivership," MBA Chief Executive John Coursonand MBA Chairman-elect Michael Berman wrote...

Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters of California is notorious for her high-decibel rants against corporate executives and career exploitation of identity politics. Class warfare and racial division are her two-decade-long stock and trade. She would normally be first in line (and in front of the cameras) to lambaste the very kind of Porsche-driving, luxury beach house-partying bank officials who begged her for a government handout. If they were white, that is. But the minority fat cats who lobbied her during the fall 2008 financial meltdown represented the black-owned OneUnited Bank. They were her longtime friends, donors and fundraisers. Her husband was...

<p>When President Barack Obama signs the financial overhaul bill into law on Wednesday, many of the most recognizable faces in the banking world won’t be among the hundreds of people in attendance.</p> <p>J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive James Dimon and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein weren’t invited to the ceremony and won’t be attending, people familiar with the matter said.</p>

Bank of Japan Deputy Governor Kiyohiko Nishimura discusses "informational advantage" this week at the Lujiazui Forum on economics and finance in Shanghai: "In my understanding, the Volcker Rule [proposed legislation restricting banks from making certain speculative investments] is designed to deter banks from taking excessive risk in capital markets, where volatility is inherently high and in which bankers do not necessarily have informational advantage in predicting market developments. Rather, the Volcker Rule urges banks to return to their traditional stronghold of commercial banking business, in which they can utilize their informational advantage based on long-term relationships with their customers." Informational...

With each passing year America sinks deeper into the tyranny of bureaucratic corporatism via today's incestuous relationship between Washington and Wall Street...Our schools, our churches, our publishers, and our entertainment industries are being infested with the serpents of Cultural Marxism. Political correctness dominates the herd mentalities and philistines who overwhelm the perceptive and productive at the polls every other November. The ignominious despotism that Tocqueville warned would come from "unbridled democracy" is stealing over our lives like the debilitating paralysis that invades the bodies of the arthritic. Yet our pundits revel in hosannas to their phony "engineered economic recovery" and...

Debate on the Senate version of the Obama administration’s bank regulatory overhaul is expected to begin shortly. The House of Representatives passed its banking bill last December. Neither bill does anything to curb the power of the banks or limit their parasitic and socially destructive activities. What the media is calling the “most sweeping overhaul” of the banking system since the Great Depression in reality sanctions the ever greater monopolization of the financial system by a handful of Wall Street giants, imposes no limits on executive pay, and allows the banks and hedge funds to continue gambling on exotic and...

The trouble with Wall Street isn't that too many bankers get rich in the booms. The trouble, rather, is that too few get poor -- really, suitably poor -- in the busts. To the titans of finance go the upside. To we, the people, nowadays, goes the downside. How much better it would be if the bankers took the losses just as they do the profits. Happily, there's a ready-made and time-tested solution. Let the senior financiers keep their salaries and bonuses, and let them do with their banks what they will. If, however, their bank fails, let the bankers...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Charles Prince and Robert Rubin, who led Citigroup (Symbol : C Loading... ) in the run-up to the 2008 banking crisis, voiced regrets on Thursday but accepted no responsibility for mega-bank's massive losses. The two came under heavy fire before a congressional panel hearing for being blind to financial risks that Citi took on, which ultimately led to its near collapse, prevented only by a $45-billion taxpayer bailout. His hands visibly shaking as he answered questions, Rubin told congressional investigators he was not a decision-maker at the bank during the worst of its troubles. The former U.S....

Politics: Another bank failure is nothing new these days — except if the bank is run by the family of a U.S. Senate candidate who profited handsomely and lent millions to a convicted felon. But then, that's the Chicago way. 'I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat-cat bankers on Wall Street," President Obama said in a recent interview with "60 Minutes." Speaking to those bankers, he said: "You guys are drawing down 10, 20 million dollar bonuses after America went through the worst economic year that it's gone through in — in decades,...

MUMBAI — In New York and London, women remain scarce among top bankers despite decades of struggle to climb the corporate ladder. But in India’s relatively young financial industry, women not only are some of the top deal makers, they are often running the show. HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, Royal Bank of Scotland, UBS and Fidelity International in India are run by women. So is the country’s second-biggest bank, Icici Bank, and its third-largest, Axis Bank. Women head investment banking operations at Kotak Mahindra and JPMorgan Chase and the equities division of Icici. Half of the deputy governors at the Reserve...

In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama said: "We face a deficit of trust -- deep and corrosive doubts about how Washington works that have been growing for years. To close that credibility gap, we have to take action on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue -- to end the outsized influence of lobbyists; to do our work openly; to give the people the government they deserve." The day after the president uttered those words, a senior Democrat offered private policy briefings to lobbyists on the administration's plans. "In the upcoming elections, voters will face a choice between...

This number sounds suspiciously similar to the number used by the Inspector General over TARP about 10 months ago during congressional hearings.

By Patrick Jenkins in Davos and Tom Braithwaite in Washington Published: January 30 2010 00:02 | Last updated: January 30 2010 00:02 Some of the world’s most prominent bankers have come out in favour of a global bank wind-down fund, a concession from the industry after weeks of fighting proposals for new taxes in the US and Europe. Josef Ackermann, chief executive of Deutsche Bank, told the Financial Times on Friday : “To help solve the too-big-to-fail problem I’m advocating a European rescue and resolution fund for banks. Of course, the capital for this fund would have to come from...

Some of the world’s most prominent bankers have come out in favour of a global bank wind-down fund, a concession from the industry after weeks of fighting proposals for new taxes in the US and Europe. Josef Ackermann, chief executive of Deutsche Bank, told the Financial Times on Friday : “To help solve the too-big-to-fail problem I’m advocating a European rescue and resolution fund for banks. Of course, the capital for this fund would have to come from banks to a large degree.” Bob Diamond, president of Barclays , also supported the idea of a global levy, which could see...

Surprise! Banks with government guarantees take the biggest risks, make the most money, and pay the highest bonuses. President Obama said last month on "60 Minutes" that he "did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street." This assertion may mollify his constituents, but it is not consistent with his administration's own policies. We are on the cusp of what is going to be the most highly visible and contentious bank bonus season in history. Bonuses are predicted to run into the billions of dollars, and many of the banks that...

WASHINGTON – Challenged by a skeptical special commission, top Wall Street bankers apologized Wednesday for risky behavior that led to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. But they still declared it seemed appropriate at the time. The bankers — whose companies collectively received more than $100 billion in taxpayer assistance to weather the crisis — offered no regrets for executive pay that is now likely to increase as a result of their survival. They did say they are correcting some compensation practices that could lead to excessive risk-taking. The tension at the first hearing of the Financial Crisis...

... [T]his is neither a housing crisis nor a Wall Street banking crisis. This is a monetary crisis, rooted in the lending of money created out of thin air. This is what leads to economic booms and busts. The current crisis goes back to the Asian Contagion of 1997 and the meltdown of the Long Term Capital Management hedge fund in 1998. In response to each of these situations, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates and rapidly expanded the money supply. This excess liquidity helped push stocks, especially tech issues, to unsustainably high levels. The excess money created by the...