http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/06/swap-jurisdiction-certainty-act-house-cross-border
More on House efforts to weaken financial oversight
― curmudgeon, Friday, 14 June 2013 14:38 (ten years ago) link
man wall street today is just like "STIMULUS NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!"
― i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Thursday, 20 June 2013 19:21 (ten years ago) link
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 ..
― mark e, Thursday, 20 June 2013 19:27 (ten years ago) link
the only people who walk away from hedge fund bonuses is no one
― now is not the time for motorboating (dandydonweiner), Thursday, 20 June 2013 19:31 (ten years ago) link
imo hedge fund managers "fuck us all over" less than big banks.
― i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Thursday, 20 June 2013 19:33 (ten years ago) link
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.
― now is not the time for motorboating (dandydonweiner), Thursday, 20 June 2013 19:35 (ten years ago) link
if anything, they fuck over their own rich clients
― i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Thursday, 20 June 2013 19:37 (ten years ago) link
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"
― now is not the time for motorboating (dandydonweiner), Thursday, 20 June 2013 19:43 (ten years ago) link
or, as like to call that, blame it on the client for being stupid
― now is not the time for motorboating (dandydonweiner), Thursday, 20 June 2013 19:44 (ten years ago) link
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'
― mark e, Thursday, 20 June 2013 19:45 (ten years ago) link
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, Thursday, 20 June 2013 19:59 (ten years ago) link
@aimless : totally ..
for all the blood connection i have to him, i have little sympathy for the path he has chosen ..
― mark e, Thursday, 20 June 2013 20:53 (ten years ago) link
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
― i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Thursday, 20 June 2013 21:17 (ten years ago) link
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.
― curmudgeon, Friday, 5 July 2013 14:44 (ten years ago) link
trying.
― curmudgeon, Friday, 5 July 2013 14:45 (ten years ago) link
constituent service is not dead
― Aimless, Friday, 5 July 2013 17:51 (ten years ago) link
Exactly; and some constituents get better service than others.
― curmudgeon, Friday, 5 July 2013 18:32 (ten years ago) link
Oh, those quotes above are from a NY Times piece btw
― curmudgeon, Friday, 5 July 2013 18:33 (ten years ago) link
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.
― curmudgeon, Monday, 8 July 2013 15:23 (ten years ago) link
that would be a massively meaningless and ineffectual rule anyway
― i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Monday, 8 July 2013 16:28 (ten years ago) link
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 (ten years ago) link
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.
― curmudgeon, Monday, 8 July 2013 17:04 (ten years ago) link
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.
― curmudgeon, Monday, 8 July 2013 17:46 (ten years ago) link
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.
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 10 July 2013 14:24 (ten years ago) link
― 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.
― i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 10 July 2013 15:08 (ten years ago) link
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.
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 10 July 2013 15:42 (ten years ago) link
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.
― i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 10 July 2013 15:51 (ten years ago) link
they oppose this for the same reason the gun lobby opposes sensible and harmless stuff
― iatee, Wednesday, 10 July 2013 15:53 (ten years ago) link
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.
― i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 10 July 2013 15:57 (ten years ago) link
CEO pay is great theater
― now is not the time for motorboating (dandydonweiner), Wednesday, 10 July 2013 16:46 (ten years ago) link
I think it's more than that, but I don't think that this particular measure is all that consequential.
― i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 10 July 2013 18:26 (ten years ago) link
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.
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 11 July 2013 19:49 (ten years ago) link
hey, don't begrudge timmy. he earned it.
― BIG HOOS aka the denigrated boogeyman (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Friday, 12 July 2013 18:34 (ten years ago) link
DIAF, GS:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/business/a-shuffle-of-aluminum-but-to-banks-pure-gold.html?pagewanted=all
― undescended listicle (Hurting 2), Monday, 22 July 2013 18:30 (ten years ago) link
there goes that revolving door againhttp://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/a-legal-bane-of-wall-street-switches-sides/?ref=businessand go round and round and round in the circle game
― undescended listicle (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 23 July 2013 13:42 (ten years ago) link
A friend posted this and it's interesting but something seems incomplete about the explanation. What are banks' incentives to evict someone and then NOT foreclose?
http://www.nationalmemo.com/how-deadbeat-banks-pushed-detroit-to-the-brink/
― undescended listicle (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 23 July 2013 14:36 (ten years ago) link
becoming a public interest attorney for the gov't is a pretty good way to get a nice cash payout at the end of the road. i feel like it incentivizes playing it light on the industry you're regulating when you're looking at your long-term career prospects.
when my uncle was at the state AGs office he was offered a hefty salary to join the guys he litigated against. he refused, but it was a shit load of money and my family was pretty pissed he didn't take it. he didn't because he actually believed in the work he was doing... and there aren't enough people like that out there.
― Spectrum, Tuesday, 23 July 2013 15:07 (ten years ago) link
http://eksith.wordpress.com/2013/07/07/bank-of-america-bot/
― stefon taylor swiftboat (s.clover), Tuesday, 23 July 2013 15:48 (ten years ago) link
http://gawker.com/bank-repossesses-wrong-house-sells-off-homeowners-stu-893629920
― stefon taylor swiftboat (s.clover), Wednesday, 24 July 2013 15:23 (ten years ago) link
The amazing thing about the BoA twitter one is that it's NOT a bot. It's actual people, responding identically to every mention of BoA.
― it itches like a porky pine sitting on your dick (Phil D.), Wednesday, 24 July 2013 15:27 (ten years ago) link
With all of her stuff either sold off by the bank or thrashed, the homeowner presented the bank's president with an $18,000 estimate for restitution.
He refused to pay up.
"He got very firm with me and said, ‘We’re not paying you retail here, that’s just the way it is,’" Barnett recalled. "I did not tell them to come in my house and make me an offer. They took my stuff and I want it back."
In litigation jargon, we call a guy like that a fucking moron who really wants to get sued.
― PJ. Turquoise dealer. Chatroulette addict. Andersonville. (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 24 July 2013 15:34 (ten years ago) link
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/katrina-vanden-heuvel-fed-up-with-wall-streets-revolving-door/2013/07/30/7f171f02-f893-11e2-8e84-c56731a202fb_story.html?tid=pm_opinions_pop
Will Obama still pick Summers anyway for the Fed?
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 30 July 2013 16:27 (ten years ago) link
SEC sues Goldman Sachs for securities fraud (and other financial schadenfreude)
a token conviction
― curmudgeon, Friday, 2 August 2013 13:21 (ten years ago) link
get the ant, ignore the colony
― BIG HOOS aka the denigrated boogeyman (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Friday, 2 August 2013 18:37 (ten years ago) link
yup
― HOOS next aka won't get steened again (Hurting 2), Friday, 2 August 2013 18:50 (ten years ago) link
it occurs to me that investment banking is kind of like organized crime, inasmuch as it's easiest to bring charges against the lowest level people because they do the actual dirty work. Unfortunately there's no SEC equivalent of RICO.
― HOOS next aka won't get steened again (Hurting 2), Friday, 2 August 2013 18:51 (ten years ago) link
You can charge business folks with operating a criminal conspiracy, however. You can prosecute the case similar to RICO that way.
The prosecutors had a list of up to 200 unindicted co-conspirators in the Enron case that the defense wasn't really allowed to talk to and people who knew they were potential targets wanted nothing to do with running afoul of the DOJ and go from unindicted to indicted co-conspirator.
http://www.chron.com/business/enron/article/Names-of-some-Enron-co-conspirators-released-1984531.php
― panettone for the painfully alone (mayor jingleberries), Friday, 2 August 2013 19:23 (ten years ago) link
Yes you can, but it's a REALLY high bar. Enron was basically a company-wide sham.
― HOOS next aka won't get steened again (Hurting 2), Friday, 2 August 2013 19:41 (ten years ago) link
I had dinner with him last year, without knowing who he was. Huge fan of Big Bang Theory
He came across as a really nice guy, tbh. There's no doubt he acted unethically and illegally but he did so in an environment that actively encouraged it. He was completely hung out to dry by people far more culpable than himself. It goes to show that you do literally need to have written e-mails bragging about all the shady stuff you're up to to get convicted.
― Inte Regina Lund eller nån, mitt namn är (ShariVari), Friday, 2 August 2013 19:47 (ten years ago) link