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More regulatory action may be needed to safeguard the money-market mutual-fund industry, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in remarks prepared for a speech on Monday night, putting his weight behind other officials who want to toughen oversight of the $2.7 trillion industry. In an address largely focused on scrutinizing murky corners of the financial system, the shadow banking system, Bernanke emphasized the need to establish regulations that protect the system as a whole from the risks that threatened it during the financial crisis. The money-market mutual-fund industry remains prone to destabilizing panics even with new regulations already in place,...

With the Kanjorski Meme still spreading (see Ben Smith, Andrew Leonard, Moldbug, and more), I think I'm finally able to squash it with some hard figures: there never was a $500 billion outflow from any asset class in the space of a couple of hours or even weeks, and the Fed never shut down or froze any money-market accounts. This is not the first time that Kanjorski has made these allegations. But first, it's worth going through the timeline. On September 15, Lehman Brothers failed. The Reserve fund -- which was $64 billion that morning, and which had a substantial...

The Post hit the nail right on the head when it reported exclusively last September that the US narrowly averted a crash of the financial markets, it was recently revealed. In the days after the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, there was a run on the country's money market funds as investors feared the bonds held by the funds would collapse - which The Post reported in a Sept. 21 story entitled "Almost Armageddon." Rep. Paul Kanjorski, of the House Finance Committee, confirmed the bank run recently. .....

Securities and Exchange Commission Inspector General David Kotz has issued his long-awaited report on how the agency missed the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme. In a statement e-mailed to CNBC Monday afternoon, Kotz said the 450-page report is the result of an exhaustive, eight-month investigation. .....

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The father of the money market mutual fund -- investor Bruce Bent -- was charged with fraud by U.S. regulators on Tuesday over accusations he deceived investors into believing his flagship fund was safe before it "broke the buck" last year. The civil charges against the veteran money manager, his son and their investment company come eight months after the Reserve Primary Fund, loaded with Lehman Brothers debt, halted redemptions after the investment bank declared bankruptcy, sparking a run on money-market funds. The fund's net asset value fell below $1 after Lehman's bankruptcy last September, meaning...