Of course its repeal contributed, directly and indirectly, to the financial crisis Here’s the headline for Andrew Ross Sorkin’s column on Tuesday about Glass-Steagall and the financial crisis: Reinstating an Old Rule Is Not a Cure for Crisis No kiddin’. Let’s see what else isn’t a “cure for crisis”: — Breaking Up Too Big to Fail Banks Is Not a Cure for Crisis — Stronger Capital Requirements Are Not a Cure for Crisis — Quintupling Regulatory Budgets Is Not a Cure for Crisis — Hauling Executives to Jail Is Not a Cure for Crisis There is no single “cure for crisis.” Period. And nobody anyone pays attention to is actually saying there is. Here’s the nut of Sorkin’s argument: A meme around Glass-Steagall has been ... Continue reading →
CLAIRTON, Pa. — Early on the morning of Sept. 3, 2009, Nicholas Adrian Revetta left the Pittsburgh suburb of Pleasant Hills and drove 15 minutes to a job at U.S. Steel’s Clairton Plant, a soot-blackened industrial complex on the Monongahela River. He never returned home.Stocky and stoic, Revetta was working that Thursday as a laborer for a U.S. Steel contractor at the same plant that employed his brother, for the same company that had employed his late father. Shortly before 11:30 a.m., gas leaking from a line in the plant’s Chemicals and Energy Division found an ignition source and exploded, propelling Revetta backward into a steel column and inflicting a fatal blow to his head. Thirty-two years old, he left behind a wife and two ... Continue reading →
No one who knew my mother Edith ever thought of her as an icon of American feminism. Yet with the passage of years I have become convinced that this is exactly what she was, though she never attended a protest or held a placard. Small, shy, seemingly passive, she was for decades a "stay-at-home Mom," that now-searing term used to describe what women have done for generations: look after a husband and children and a household. Unlike most American women, though—including those who figured in the recent contretemps between Democrats and Republicans over the choices Ann Romney made—my immigrant mother never had a choice. Not a hint of one. For a young girl coming of age in Cairo of the 1930s and '40s, whether you ... Continue reading →
Note: The Trade is not subject to our Creative Commons license. The Securities and Exchange Commission seems to think that it has done a much better job of investigating financial crisis wrongdoing than the Justice Department. And it's true. But it's like being proud that you're the "Dumb" of "Dumb and Dumber." A case the commission filed last week epitomizes a lot of what's wrong with the agency, even under the supposed overhaul by its chairwoman, Mary L. Schapiro. The agency brought a civil case against a tiny, iconoclastic ratings agency called Egan-Jones, run by the outspoken Sean Egan, accusing it of, well, essentially filling out forms wrong. Before the S.E.C. charges, Egan-Jones was best known for two things: having made some bold calls about ... Continue reading →
by Craig Silverman Published May 3, 2012 9:34 am Updated May 3, 2012 10:35 am If an error in your reporting gives birth to a false rumor, do you have a responsibility to knock down that rumor? Questions like this are being pondered more than ever before in newsrooms. When do journalists have a responsibility to debunk and battle back against the false narratives and untruths that make their way into public discourse? New York Times Public Editor Arthur Brisbane waded into this issue with a post that initially set off some incredulous reaction, in part due to the headline, “Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?” I come back to this issue for a specific purpose. Yesterday Politico media reporter Dylan Byers published a ... Continue reading →
June 25, 2008 file photo of Countrywide Financial Corp. headquarters' main gate in Calabasas, Calif. WASHINGTON -- A whistleblower who exposed systemic fraud by Countrywide mortgage lenders called on the Department of Justice on Wednesday to prosecute her former colleagues, if not with fraud, then with covering it up. "If there is insufficient legal evidence to convict these executives of what we believe are obvious crimes, then the federal government should refocus," Eileen Foster, a former Countrywide fraud investigations chief, told an audience at the National Press Club gathered to honor her and five others for their truth-telling. "Overwhelming evidence of perjury, witness tampering and obstruction of justice exist in the numerous claims, court filings and trial and investigative transcripts," Foster said. She herself was ... Continue reading →
