Marshall Auerback here. I have been posting at an interesting new site called New Deal 2.0. You may have seen Edward linking out to articles on the site.
Edward saw an article I wrote there recently and asked me to post it here as well to highlight a recurrent theme at Credit Writedowns – namely that [...]

Stephen Roach doesn’t mince words.  He calls monetary policy during the bubble years “reckless and irresponsible” and he thinks politics is thwarting any meaningful regulatory reform, a view I also hold. I think the point of Roach’s attack is that a lot of finger-pointing has been directed at Wall Street and even Main Street. But, [...]

Bair spoke to CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo about the Fed as a single regulator, her agency’s available capital, premiums for deposit insurance, FDIC seizures, private equity buyers and much more. The video is below and runs just under 11 minutes.

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Say I’m a politician and I am concerned about my re-election prospects in 2010.  I have been a member of Congress for seven years now and have developed a good reputation as a reform-minded economic realist willing to listen to a number of competing economic ideas. However, right now I am a bit concerned [...]

Below is a good video analysis by Jess Bravin of the Wall Street Journal on the BofA-Merrill Lynch saga.  Bravin discusses the recent rejection by Judge Jed Rakoff of the out-of-court settlement between the SEC and Bank of America (BAC) in which BofA was to pay a miniscule $33 million fine.
Rakoff’s decision to scupper this [...]

Via CNBC:
Bernie Madoff, the man who orchestrated the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, is heard on tape in 2005 talking to executives at Fairfield Greenwich about how to get around the SEC. Ron Geffner, a former SEC enforcement attorney, discusses the tape with CNBC’s Scott Cohn.

Self-regulation in action.  Note that this tape was uncovered due [...]

Bloomberg News is writing a very worthy series of retrospective articles on the financial panic of September 2008.  I profiled the first one on Monday.  The next in the series came out yesterday and it makes for riveting and enlightening reading.
Bloomberg News reporters Bob Ivry, Mark Pittman and Christine Harper talked to a large [...]

In a BBC Two interview, former Fed chief Alan Greenspan waxed fatalistic, saying that another financial crisis is inevitable due to animal spirits.  In his view, booms and busts are endogenous to the capitalist system, crises being the outcome of long periods of prosperity. I agree with this assessment. But, it is surprising to hear [...]

With the Lehman meltdown hitting its one-year anniversary soon, a lot of media outlets are looking back at the events that surrounded Lehman’s collapse. Bloomberg has a good article out that is a must-read piece.
For me, the money quote of the article comes via Rich Bernstein.
One year later, policymakers haven’t learned the lesson of the [...]

There is an effort underway to install the Federal Reserve as super-regulator for all banks and financial institutions, concentrating power in one institution. I find these efforts one of the most disturbing outgrowths of the financial crisis we have been witnessing. Such a system is sure to increase the power of too big to fail [...]