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MONTREAL - If the Chinese stock market is still an indicator of global investor appetite for risk, as analysts viewed it a few months ago, then that appetite has lately diminished. Perhaps they are finally absorbing some of the revelations about statistical manipulations. They may also be reacting to more recent revelations warning of bank fraud in China. In one case, the Royal Bank of Scotland is reportedly investigating suspected fraud in its China unit. Client losses could be worth up to US$3 million, the Financial Times has reported, citing local media. Whatever the reason, neither Chinese nor global stock...

Hey, President Obama, Here's An Easy Way To Get Banks To Lend! Henry BlodgetDec. 16, 2009, 11:17 AM The whole premise of the Wall Street bailout was to keep banks alive so they could keep lending money to us. Remember that? It seemed like a such a nice idea at the time: Banks are now not only not lending money to us, they're not bothering to attend meetings with the President in which he is begging them to lend money to us (because who wants to waste time going to Washington to be lectured by a bureaucrat when you can...

Barack Obama’s steady decline in the polls this week may mean the American people are tired of the president’s divisive campaign rhetoric after nearly a year into his administration. The Rasmussen Report’s daily tracking poll shows 53 percent of Americans disapprove of his performance in office. With an economy shaking, unemployment rising, and two wars draining our nation’s human and financial resources, Mr. Obama prefers to use the divisive language of the campaign trail in hopes of gaining public and political support for economic policies rather than to provide the leadership his supporters sorely hoped he possessed. He demonstrated this...

I trust my banker more than I trust my president. And after Imam Obama’s photo op with the Wall Street types yesterday, it’s not even close. I side with the capitalists. Obama the Arrogant is no friend of mine. And for a guy with the lowest first-year popularity rating in the history of the presidency, he’s pretty generous with that self-assigned “solid B-plus” grade he claimed in the Oprah interview. Now that’s hard-hitting journalism -- Oprah Winfrey asking Barack Obama how much he loves himself. Turns out, he loves himself quite a bit. And it turns out we have to...

In public, President Obama is on a tear against Wall Street. In private, not so much Over the weekend, Obama attacked fat-cat investment bankers, telling "60 Minutes" he didn't become president to aid and abet Wall Street -- which, only a year after the financial meltdown and taxpayer bailout, is now scheduled to hand out tens of billions of dollars in bonuses to its bankers and traders. But the president's meeting yesterday with the CEOs of the largest banks was nearly a lovefest, I'm told by attendees. Yes, White House spinmeisters advertised the gathering as a chance for Obama to...

Obama Administration Can't Decide Whether The Recession Is Over, But It Wants Banks To Lever Up Joe WeisenthalDec. 13, 2009, 2:39 PM Politico recognizes inconsistency emanating out of the Obama administration based on comments from today's Sunday morning yak-fests. Two of President Obama’s top economic advisers disagreed Sunday about whether the recession had ended. Lawrence Summers, director of the National Economic Council, flatly said that it had. "Today, everybody agrees that the recession is over, and the question is what the pace of the expansion is going to be," Summers said on ABC's "This Week." But Christina Romer, who heads...

In the financial regulatory overhaul bill that passed the House December 11, insufficeint regulation of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives 'renders impotent' the enhanced resolution powers aimed at making sure large financial institutions are not too big to fail, according to economist Robert Johnson

"A wonderful, free, light consciousness" born of the utter absence of any understanding of "the necessity, meaning, or importance of other people." Obviously, Ayn Rand was most favorably impressed with Mr. Hickman. He was, at least at that stage of Rand's life, her kind of man. So the question is, who exactly was he? William Edward Hickman was one of the most famous men in America in 1928. But he came by his fame in a way that perhaps should have given pause to Ayn Rand before she decided that he was a "real man" worthy of enshrinement in her...

The president has packed his economic team with Wall Street insiders intent on turning the bailout into an all-out giveaway Barack Obama ran for president as a man of the people, standing up to Wall Street as the global economy melted down in that fateful fall of 2008. He pushed a tax plan to soak the rich, ripped NAFTA for hurting the middle class and tore into John McCain for supporting a bankruptcy bill that sided with wealthy bankers "at the expense of hardworking Americans." Obama may not have run to the left of Samuel Gompers or Cesar Chavez, but...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House passed the most ambitious restructuring of federal financial regulations since the New Deal on Friday, aiming to head off any replay of last year's Wall Street failures that plunged the nation deep into recession. The sprawling legislation would give the government new powers to break up companies that threaten the economy, create a new agency to oversee consumer banking transactions and shine a light into shadow financial markets that have escaped the oversight of regulators. The vote was a party-line 223-202. No Republicans voted for the bill; 27 Democrats voted against it.

Obama's Big Wall Street Sellout The president has packed his economic team with Wall Street insiders intent on turning the bailout into an all-out giveaway Barack Obama ran for president as a man of the people, standing up to Wall Street as the global economy melted down in that fateful fall of 2008. He pushed a tax plan to soak the rich, ripped NAFTA for hurting the middle class and tore into John McCain for supporting a bankruptcy bill that sided with wealthy bankers "at the expense of hardworking Americans." Obama may not have run to the left of Samuel...

In a London preview of Wall Street's bonus nightmare, more than 1,000 investment bankers have quit Royal Bank of Scotland to work at rivals due to curbs on their paychecks, according to people familiar with the situation. Wall Street banks fear top talent would flee en masse for greener pastures if Uncle Sam's pay czar, Ken Feinberg, and Congress try to put more ceilings on bonuses and pay at financial firms. In the UK, the rules are modeled after US actions to curb pay at firms bailed out by the government.RBS will soon be about 84-percent owned by the British...

Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric’s chief executive, said on Wednesday his generation of business leaders had succumbed to “meanness and greed” that had harmed the US economy and increased the gap between the rich and the poor. Mr Immelt’s attack on his fellow corporate chiefs – made in a speech at the West Point military academy – is one of the strongest criticisms by a top executive of the compensation and business practices that prevailed before the financial crisis. “We are at the end of a difficult generation of business leadership ... tough-mindedness, a good trait, was replaced by meanness and...

Ex-Fed chief Paul Volcker's 'telling' words on derivatives industry Paul Volcker, the chairman of President Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, stunned a business conference in Sussex yesterday, saying there is "little evidence innovation in financial markets has had a visible effect on the productivities of the economy".   By Louise Armitstead Published: 9:41PM GMT 08 Dec 2009 The former US Federal Reserve chairman told an audience that included some of the world's most senior financiers that their industry's "single most important" contribution in the last 25 years has been automatic telling machines, which he said had at least proved "useful"....

Wall Street Falls On Recovery Uncertainty On 2:38 pm EST, Tuesday December 8, 2009 By Angela Moon NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Tuesday after a disappointing outlook from 3M Co and weak domestic sales at McDonald's Corp fanned worries that sluggish consumer spending threatened the economic recovery. Equities also faced pressure from a stronger U.S. dollar as investors sought more safe-haven assets amid worries about Dubai's unresolved debt problems and Fitch Ratings' downgrade of Greece's bond rating. Diversified manufacturer 3M (NYSE:MMM - News) fell 1.2 percent to $76.98 after it gave a 2009 outlook that fell short of...

<p>Sweeping regulations to tame Wall Street and protect consumers in dealings with lenders are on the verge of passing the House but their fate is hardly sealed.</p> <p>Crucial pieces are still flashpoints, fiercely opposed by various sectors of the financial services industry and likely to be fought on the House floor and beyond.</p>

The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who's Who of Goldman Sachs graduates.

In Rolling Stone Issue 1082-83, Matt Taibbi takes on "the Wall Street Bubble Mafia" --investment bank Goldman Sachs. The piece has generated controversy, with Goldman Sachs firing back that Taibbi's piece is "an hysterical compilation of conspiracy theories" and a spokesman adding, "We reject the assertion that we are inflators of bubbles and profiteers in busts, and we are painfully conscious of the importance in being a force for good. " Taibbi shot back: "Goldman has its alumni pushing its views from the pulpit of the U.S. Treasury, the NYSE, the World Bank, and numerous other important posts; it also...

THE experts are very confident that Friday's report on the employment market for November will show the least number of job losses in quite a while, perhaps as few as 114,000. I hope that's true. But I don't think it will be. As you know, these monthly job figures are very important to traders on Wall Street who can make money when the financial markets are confronted with surprises. And with all that's going on in the world -- Dubai's problems, America's economic crisis and the US stock market's seeming indifference to both -- a bad report Friday will just...

As millions of Americans struggle to hold on to their homes, Wall Street has found a way to make money from the mortgage mess. Investment funds are buying billions of dollars’ worth of home loans, discounted from the loans’ original value. Then, in what might seem an act of charity, the funds are helping homeowners by reducing the size of the loans. But as part of these deals, the mortgages are being refinanced through lenders that work with government agencies like the Federal Housing Administration. This enables the funds to pocket sizable profits by reselling new, government-insured loans to other...

Glum trader who missed most of the upside is now convinced the market will only go down for the rest of the year. The Dow is down over a hundred points today and it's making professional traders nervous. We spoke to a friend this morning at a large prop trading desk inside an investment bank and we’ve never heard him so bleak. He says that all the equity traders on his desk think the market will do nothing but go down for the rest of the year. “We’re all waiting for the market to crack. And it looks today like...

Wall Street tax must be international: Pelosi Thu Nov 19, 2009 12:44pm EST By Andy Sullivan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Any tax imposed on financial transactions would have to take effect internationally to prevent Wall Street jobs and related business moving overseas, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday. "It would have to be an international rule, not just a U.S. rule," Pelosi said at a news conference. "We couldn't do it alone, we'd have to do it as an international initiative." The top Democrat's comments seemed to spell longer odds for the Wall Street tax, which some Democrats in...

(snip) "We participated in things that were clearly wrong and have reason to regret," said Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein. "We apologize." Blankfein had told a British newspaper the other day that Goldman was doing “God’s work”. That caused a firestorm online. (snip)

According to Thomas Bouchard, a US psychologist famous for his research on twins raised apart,[1] even scientists with good reason to believe that the majority are wrong can be silenced. The reason is...

It's coming in 2012: Another, bigger meltdown of Wall Street's "too-greedy-to-fail" banks. No, this is not another fanatical warning about that Dec. 21, 2012 end-of-days prediction based on the Mayan calendar, though you may well ask "Who will survive?" Here is what's happening: History is repeating itself. Wall Street's soul-sickness is setting up a new meltdown. Dead ahead. Be prepared. My track record speaks for itself. Back on March 20, 2000, my column headline read: "Next crash? Sorry, you'll never hear it coming." Bull's eye: The dot-com bubble popped at 11,722. The economy collapsed. A 30-month recession. Markets lost $8...

U.S. stocks rose broadly on Monday, sending indexes to fresh 13-month closing highs, after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke reinforced expectations that interest rates would stay low to spur growth. Bernanke repeated that the Fed was likely to keep interest rates exceptionally low for "an extended period," a pledge that weighed on the U.S. dollar and drove investors to snap up shares of natural resource companies as prices of global commodities -- from gold to wheat -- shot higher. In a speech before the Economic Club of New York, Bernanke said the recovery would not be as robust as previously...

Meredith Whitney: "I Haven't Been This Bearish In A Year" (XLF) Joe WeisenthalNov. 16, 2009, 3:38 PM XLF Nov 16 2009, 03:59 PM EST 14.83 Change % Change +0.17 +1.16% Oof. Financials are taking a hit after Meredith Whitney told CNBC that she "hasn't been this bearish in a year." She's also calling for a "double dip" recession. StreetInsider bullet-points her comments: * the banking sector is "not adequately capitalized today" * sees another leg down in the residential real estate market when mortgage rates/prices begin moving lower. To this point, Meredith said she feels that there is still a...

Wall Street's Armageddon ChimeraFriday, November 13. 2009 Posted by Karl Denninger in Corruption at 08:44 For how long will The American People tolerate the "do what I want or we will detonate the world" claims from "Big Business"? “If the U.S. dismantles our leading institutions, then it will destroy the American financial center, which is largely anchored in New York,” said Kathryn Wylde, president and CEO of the New York partnership. “It’s just frightening.” Arrest that woman and charge her with extortion and terroristic threats made against The United States. Then ask who would like to be next. I'm tired...

The Obama administration has taken great pains to blame Wall Street for the woes of the financial system. Representative Barney Frank and Senator Chris Dodd have held numerous hearings, pointing fingers at greedy capitalists and unchecked, unregulated risk-taking. What they should be doing is pointing their fingers at the American financial regulatory system that the committees oversee. The rules of the game need to be changed so that the playing field is actually competitive. Structures need to be altered, and regulations written, so actual risk is being assumed or transferred when money is invested. Goldman now makes millions of dollars...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Two former Bear Stearns hedge fund managers were found not guilty on all charges on Tuesday in the first major criminal trial stemming from the housing and financial meltdown. A jury in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, N.Y., acquitted Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin. Both had worked as hedge fund managers at Bear Stearns, which went bankrupt in March 2008. Federal prosecutors had accused Cioffi and Tannin of falsely inflating the value of their portfolios, even as they knew that the mortgage-backed assets in the funds were at risk of collapse.

The Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal report that Wall Street giants Citigroup and Goldman Sachs have been issued the swine flu vaccine for their "at risk" employees despite the fact that there are massive shortages of the vaccine nationwide. The rarity of the vaccine has made it a hot commodity, one in which movers, shakers, traders, and bailout recipients now have jumped to the front of the line when it comes to what President Obama declared to be a National Emergency in late October. Reaction to the news has been swift, fierce, and angry. Senator Chris Dodd of...

"For it is impossible for any one to begin to learn what he thinks he already knows." -- Epictetus In a little-known book entitled Capital Rules: The Construction of Global Finance written in 2007 a year before the global financial meltdown, Harvard professor Rawi Abdelal tells how it was French socialists, not Wall Street or the U.S. Treasury or credit rating firms (S&P, Moody’s, etc.), that liberalized global finance. The only problem with this book is that it is not one of the many books on the financial meltdown that follows the successful pop journalistic formula of demonizing greedy financial...

I recently sat down with legendary investor Ted Forstmann to discuss why, on the one-year anniversary of the financial meltdown, the press has largely ignored the role of government in creating the meltdown—and possibly setting the stage for another one—by allowing Wall Street to borrow cheaply and easily during the past three decades. "I guess reporters think writing about greedy investment bankers is more interesting," Mr. Forstmann laughed. [....] The greed merchants needed a co-conspirator, Mr. Forstmann argues, and that co-conspirator is and was the United States government. "They're always there waiting to hand out free money," he said. "They...

The government, which ordered 250 million doses, has recommended that the limited supply go first to high-risk groups: children and young people through age 24, people caring for infants under 6 months, pregnant women and health care workers.

The drama unfolds slowly at first. First-term (anti-bailout candidate) Democrat Alan Grayson questions Elizabeth Coleman, Inspector General of the Federal Reserve. The issue is oversight of the Fed's balance sheet, and the potential multi-trillion dollar loss that would be borne by you. If watching the clip sends you into an apoplectic seizure as it does to me, then please help. We need millions of Americans to become aware of the Fed and its abuses. Monetization of the national debt is occurring daily (quantitative easing), as Bernanke simply creates credit and purchases Treasuries. And we haven't even begun to discuss the...

On September 29th 2008 my wife and I and our oldest grandchild waited patiently in a nearby park while our newest grandchild was about to be born. That Monday, several hundred miles to the east, America’s financial community was literally given its economic walking papers as Wall Street delivered crushing economic news. That day Dow Jones plunged 777 points and the market lost an incredible 1.2 trillion in market value -- the largest single-point plunge in America’s history. It withered main street America retirement plans, college savings plans, and housing mortgages. Each successive week brought an escalating tidal wave of...

[Excerpt] "Sometimes our technology, in creating these securities, outpaces our ability to cope with them." That's what Larry Fink told the New York Times in May 1987 when asked about Howie Rubin's trading disaster. In the past, Fink would have made that statement to a reporter and then celebrated with his team the fact that one of his competitors, particularly one like Merrill Lynch, which he saw as a pesky upstart in the field he aimed to dominate, was now being nailed with massive losses. But Fink wasn't celebrating, because, much like Howie Rubin, he had just gotten his first...

WASHINGTON — In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting. Goldman's sales and its clandestine wagers, completed at the brink of the housing market meltdown, enabled the nation's premier investment bank to pass most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies. Only later did investors discover that what Goldman had...

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stocks remained sharply lower Friday afternoon in a broad sell-off led by the financial sector that wiped out Thursday's huge gains and had the Dow Jones Industrial Average looking flat for the month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was recently down 224 points, or 2.3%, at 9735, on track for its 10th day this month of a triple-digit move. At its intraday low, the Dow hit 9688.77. If it closes below 9712.28, the Dow would end the month in the red. All its 30 components were lower recently, led by financial components Bank of America...

Fed's Massive Secret Wall Street Bailout Still Going Strong Posted Oct 30, 2009 08:53am EDT Henry Blodget Remember last fall, when our government explained that the reason we needed to give $800 billion to Wall Street was so the banks could lend it back to us and shock the economy back to life again? That was a happy story! And we fell for it. What happened, of course, was that the banks took the money, stopped lending, and used it to pay themselves and their shareholders through the nose.[snip]

The financial crisis is now more than a year old, and Americans are still angry -- angry that the economy tanked, angry that they're out of work. But mostly, people seem outraged by Wall Street bonuses. Seeking to assuage that ire, the Obama administration's "compensation czar," Kenneth Feinberg, last week announced plans to cut the pay of top executives at the seven companies receiving federal support through the Troubled Assets Relief Program. He has suggested that the cuts, which slashed pay for top executives by an average of 50 percent, should be a model for the rest of Wall Street...

During the boom years, New York–based small-business lender CIT group went heavy into the risky subprime loan business, under the guidance of CEO Jeffrey Peek. This past year, after it all came crashing down, CIT accepted $2.3 billion in TARP money and then went and asked the administration for more. They were denied. ("Their Plan A was: Seek assistance from the government. And their Plan B was: Ask again," a senior Obama administration official told the Journal at the time.) Absent a plan, the company spiraled toward bankruptcy, and last week Peek was forced to resign. Now his wife, Liz...

Sen. Chris Dodd produced language that allowed Feinberg to cut salariesBy VICTORIA MCGRANE 10/23/09 4:37 PM EDT Remember all the heat Sen. Chris Dodd took earlier this year over writing the loophole in the stimulus that let AIG executives collect $165 million in bonuses? But that same provision had another key section – the authority for a White House pay czar to slash top executive pay at seven financial firms that still hold billions in taxpayer bailout funds. So what Dodd’s legislation gave away in the form of bonuses, it has taken back with special pay master Kenneth Feinberg’s power...

Congress put American taxpayers on the hook for $700 billion last year when it approved the massive bailout to paper over the imprudent lending decisions of nine Wall Street giants: Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, State Street and the Bank of NY Mellon. The bailout was essential to save the nation from a complete economic meltdown. Or so insisted President George W. Bush, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. One year later, however, a little-noted report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office...

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- There's no need to fear a Wall Street brain drain -- despite the crackdown on pay by Washington. On Thursday, White House pay czar Kenneth Feinberg outlined compensation restrictions at seven firms that got special bailouts, and the Federal Reserve proposed to review pay practices at 28 unnamed giant banks. Critics warn that reining in pay makes it hard to keep talented employees. Hemmed in, institutions like AIG (AIG, Fortune 500),Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) and Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) could lose their best people. These firms would then perform even more abysmally, if that's...

Yesterday, the White House pay czar, Ken Feinberg, did his round of interviews to explain the massive cuts in executive pay for bailed out firms. The Washington pay czar who's ordered steep pay cuts for executives at bailed-out firms could have practically unlimited power to regulate compensation at any company that gets federal funding, lawyers say -- even if his legal authority is sketchy. The move raises questions about whether the mandate will be limited to the seven firms Kenneth Feinberg is currently targeting -- and whether it could trickle down to smaller companies. "He has a lot of authority...

After a big flop with Chrysler, Cerberus finally has a winner on its hands. Even better, right-wing gun nuts have another shot at profits. I can’t wait. Baltimore – I live in a neighborhood where guns are common. I like it that way. Last night, the lady of the house and I decided to enjoy what may be one of the last warm evenings of the year on the East Coast by taking a short hike along the river that flows just two miles from our front door. While meandering along the water and dodging groundhog holes, we heard the...

Worried about a potential slippery slope with the Obama administration dictating what people are paid in the private sector - TARP bailout or no TARP bailout? Message from CNBC's Jim Cramer: Get over it. On CNBC's Oct. 21 "Street Signs," the "Mad Money" host ripped into Wall Street executives that objected to the government dictating the rules of compensation. Opponents argue these pay restrictions inhibit Wall Street firms ability to retain the best employees possible - an argument Cramer says doesn't matter. "Hey, there's no God-given right to work at those companies," Cramer said. "These people can go off if...

The vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs has launched an astonishing defence of bumper bonuses just a year after bankers brought the world's economy to the brink of collapse. In a speech likely to recall fictional banker Gordon Gekko in the film Wall Street - whose mantra 'greed is good' came to sum up the excesses of the 1980s - Lord Griffiths claimed taxpayers should 'tolerate the inequality'. And he insisted that banks should not be ashamed of rewarding staff. Lord Griffiths (left) has echoed the 'Greed is good' maxim by Gordon Gekko, played by MIchael Douglas in the film Wall Street,...

Wall Street is up to its old tricks again. One year later, one of the key excesses that led our consumer-based economy into an historic downturn is being abused in the exact same way that got us $147-a-barrel oil last summer. Worse, many in the media are again getting the facts wrong on oil prices and demand— Forget what Cambridge Energy Research Associates reported on Oct. 13. By its calculations oil demand actually peaked in 2005 among the industrialized members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation, while in the U.S. alone oil usage has dropped by 2 million barrels a...