the finance industry / wall street

It's news to the extent that the details go counter to the Obama and Democratic party PR meme re enforcement of Dodd-Frank (yep I know its only been pr and never really true). I was gonna add that myself, but it's worth mentioning how its still going on, business as usual, although that's no surprise either.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/banks-lobbyists-help-in-drafting-financial-bills/

One bill that sailed through the House Financial Services Committee this month — over the objections of the Treasury Department — was essentially Citigroup’s, according to e-mails reviewed by The New York Times. The bill would exempt broad swathes of trades from new regulation.

do you know what that means

it means absolutely nothing because the bill will not be passed

Representative Maxine Waters, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, was among the few Democrats opposing the change, echoing the concerns of consumer groups.

A watered-down compromise version that will satisfy Wall Street may pass though

Grassley said in a statement late Wednesday he had not heard from the White House about Comey's nomination but said Comey possessed a lot of important experience on national security issues.

"But, if he's nominated, he would have to answer questions about his recent work in the hedge fund industry," Grassley said. "The administration's efforts to criminally prosecute Wall Street for its part in the economic downturn have been abysmal, and his agency would have to help build the case against some of his colleagues."

Senator Grassley, man of the people

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/31/join-wall-street-save-the-world/?hpid=z1

Hedge fund types who give large chunks of their salary to fighting malaria and other charities

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2013_06/dim_prospects_for_brownvitter045192.php

Bipartisan tougher regulation for big banks not likely to go anywhere

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/alexis-goldstein-the-intimidate-the-ctfc-act/2013/06/12/18451f48-d374-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story.html?hpid=z2

So derivatives experts, is this Occupy guy's guest editorial regarding a derivatives bill wrong?

Occupy person

that basically makes sense. iirc lots of components of bank operations are in london instead of e.g. ny because of different regulations. including, especially, the ability to take something you've gotten as a swap from someone else, and in turn engage in a swap with it, etc. so that big pools of capital can be generated from just swapping the same things back and forth.

We're doomed

here's the paper i was thinking of on this stuff. singh has done lots of follow-on research too. gotta love the term 'rehypothication'!

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.cfm?sk=24075.0

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/06/swap-jurisdiction-certainty-act-house-cross-border

More on House efforts to weaken financial oversight

man wall street today is just like "STIMULUS NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!"

Hedge fund types who give large chunks of their salary to fighting malaria and other charities

one of my cousins is a hedge fund manager of a rather influential euro fund.

so much so, that the bonus he received a few years back was worthy of press attention ..

so, a few inquiries within the family boundaries revealed that he hated the crap he was involved in and that he wanted to pack it all in and do good with his ill gotten gained fortune.

well, 5 years later.

he's still f*cking us all over and picking up his bonuses ..

the only people who walk away from hedge fund bonuses is no one

imo hedge fund managers "fuck us all over" less than big banks.

the ones I know aren't intent on fucking anyone over, unless you count the way that they validate their management fees.

The ones I know usually say things like, "Yes, the compensation in our industry is borderline embarrassing. Everyone is overpaid."

Aww shucks.

if anything, they fuck over their own rich clients

the guys I know would probably agree, but only in the context of "we make them shitloads of money and they fully agree to our terms"

or, as like to call that, blame it on the client for being stupid

thing is my cousin is genuinely a good man.
he has a big heart and is not the oliver stone cliche.
and given my insight, he clearly is at war with his inner world.
but he has a certain financial demand now (wife, staff, kids, private schools etc in that order), and so has to maintain a certain level of lifestyle.
so, while his world may look special from the outside, give me the stress free lifestyle that i have built up instead anyday.
despite the stupid bonus, poor f*cker has it tuff.
seriously.
i like being 'normal'

all the demands you speak of were choices. if he has it tough, it was not imposed on him and his staying with his previous choices is still largely elective. (not the kids, tho)

@aimless : totally ..

for all the blood connection i have to him, i have little sympathy for the path he has chosen ..

sometimes a person builds his own prison and then loses the key -- not the most sympathetic case when the prison has jacuzzi hot tubs and 5,000 square foot loft-style cells, but still, a person can get himself on a path and have trouble getting off

NY Dems and others tring to weaken the law again

Recently, Mr. Schumer, Ms. Gillibrand and four other Democratic senators wrote to the Treasury secretary, Jacob Lew, seeking his help in shelving crucial “cross-border” guidelines on derivatives from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The guidance makes it clear that numerous new derivatives rules under the Dodd-Frank law apply to foreign affiliates of American banks and to foreign banks operating in the United States.

Without strong cross-border rules, derivatives regulation will be meaningless because big American banks that dominate the global market in derivatives will simply engage in risky trades and rank speculation abroad. When those risks and wagers go wrong, American institutions and American taxpayers will be on the hook — again.
...
Mr. Schumer, Ms. Gillibrand and their four colleagues are not only going against lawmakers in their own party, most of whom have resisted attempts to delay the cross-border rules. They are also going against the cause of reform, lobbying for delays that would derail the law.

trying.

constituent service is not dead

Exactly; and some constituents get better service than others.

Oh, those quotes above are from a NY Times piece btw

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/dodd-frank-executive-pay-rule-still-in-limbo-amid-pushback-from-corporate-america/2013/07/06/94a8c9e0-d793-11e2-a9f2-42ee3912ae0e_singlePage.html

The provision required companies to disclose how much more their chief executives made than other employees. All the agency had to do was write a rule telling firms how to comply.

The provision required companies to disclose how much more their chief executives made than other employees. All the agency had to do was write a rule telling firms how to comply.

that would be a massively meaningless and ineffectual rule anyway

You buy the reasoning that the companies oppose it? Information to the public is good even if it alone won't change anything.

Advocates contest the notion that calculating the ratio is impractical. “That’s absurd. It’s not that complicated,’’ said Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform, an umbrella group of organizations pushing for the pay ratio. She accused the SEC of “bowing” to industry lobbyists and ”slow-walking” the issue.

With conservative dominated courts blocking rules that could be effective (see below), at least providing further information on pay ratio seems to be all that's left

A federal appeals court in the District in July 2011 blocked the SEC’s “proxy access” rule, a requirement under the Dodd-Frank law that would have made it easier for shareholders to oust members of corporate boards and nominate new ones.

In a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable, the court blasted the SEC for failing to fully consider the economic impact of the regulation. The decision cast a pall, forcing the agency to devote far more time to analyzing the costs of its proposals, including the pay ratio.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/regulators-seek-stiffer-bank-rules-on-capital/?ref=business

Wow, we will eventually see after the 60 day comment period and whatever else whether this will hold.

You buy the reasoning that the companies oppose it? Information to the public is good even if it alone won't change anything.

― curmudgeon, Monday, 8 July 2013 16:56 (2 days ago) Permalink

I don't see it as providing all that much "information." The CEO's total compensation is already publicly disclosed. The median employee's compensation --the bottom part of the ratio -- isn't, but it's not going to vary that widely from huge company to huge company.

So why do you think the big corporations so engaged in opposing this? They just don't want to do the math needed to calculate the ratio? Or do they just automatically oppose anything Congress wants them to do.

tbf probably because it has bad optics for them, which I guess is maybe part of the idea -- give people another stick to beat them with. There's already the say-on-pay provision in effect (non-binding shareholder vote approving/disapproving executive pay) which I think is more useful.

they oppose this for the same reason the gun lobby opposes sensible and harmless stuff

it's a game, oppose everything

That's probably also true. I don't think it would really be that hard to calculate, but they don't want more news stories that say "CEO of XYZ Corp. tops the CEO pay ratio list for 2013" or whatever, and this just gives one more tool to write stories like that.

CEO pay is great theater

I think it's more than that, but I don't think that this particular measure is all that consequential.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/geithner-speaking-fees

Simon Johnson has explained, “Geithner came to stand for providing large amounts of unconditional support for very big banks…” at the New York Federal Reserve and continued this pattern in Washington. He favored unqualified assistance to troubled banks

The banking world is very grateful for Geithner’s championing of their interests over the public’s. Just six months after he left the Treasury in January, it has showered Geithner with cash. Deutsche Bank lavished him with $200,000 to speak at a conference in June. Private equity groups are also shoveling over piles of dough: Blackstone and Warburg Pincus paid Geithner $100,000 each for recent speaking engagements.

hey, don't begrudge timmy. he earned it.

DIAF, GS:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/business/a-shuffle-of-aluminum-but-to-banks-pure-gold.html?pagewanted=all

there goes that revolving door again
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/a-legal-bane-of-wall-street-switches-sides/?ref=business
and go round and round and round in the circle game