For anyone interested, tune in C-SPAN3 right now to watch the conference on the financial regulatory reform bill live. The House and Senate versions are already very similar but the largest sticking point remains language authored by Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Blanche Lincoln requiring banks to spin off their in-house derivatives trading desks. The provision [...]
Wallace C. Tubeville, a former Goldman Sachs VP and former CEO of derivative broker VMAC, has done us all a service. In a post on New Deal 2.0, he lays out the over-the-counter derivative trader’s view of why financial reform is a bad thing. A level playing field is anathema to the trader. Successful traders [...]
Despite what Glenn Beck’s chalkboard says, George Soros is one of the world’s most successful capitalists, and a major advocate for more regulated markets. Today, in the Financial Times, he repeats a claim that I have been hearing a lot lately, without much substantiation. The five big banks which serve as marketmakers and account for [...]
There is a regional subplot playing out in the debate for financial reform. Here are some clues: White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel just flew up to New York to meet with investors. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell spent part of his recess meeting with big financiers in New York. President Obama will head [...]
The labor unions and the political left have made Blanche Lincoln, a centrist Democrat from Arkansas, their top primary target. The rhetoric supporting her opponent, Bill Halter, has come fast and fierce. On April 13, Moveon.org sent out an email that read like this: Imagine you’re a giant Wall Street bank. Life is good. For [...]
For weeks now, suspense, like springtime pollen, has flitted through the air in Washington. The reason is something that almost no one in America understands: derivatives. One type of these complex financial products–credit default swaps–played a central role in the recent financial collapse, serving as a sort of Trojan Horse that hid vast amounts of [...]
