Archive | Law & Regulation

Abolishing Corporate Personhood: Be Careful What You Ask For.

October 19, 2011

Following the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Citizens United, calls for the abolition of corporate personhood have multiplied. Noam Chomsky, Al Gore and Ralph Nader are advocates. Occupy Wall Street protesters mention it as a possible demand. Move to Amend is a coalition of organizations and individuals pursuing a constitutional amendment. Be careful what you ask [...]

Zombie Glass–Steagall

October 13, 2011

On Tuesday, the FDIC released proposed rules for implementing Section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Act—the so-called Volcker Rule. On Wednesday, the SEC did the same. This is a joint effort of the FDIC, Federal Reserve Board, SEC and OCC. Their—largely identical—proposed rules are based on a 79 page study released by Tim Geithner’s Department of [...]

“The World’s Largest Hedge Fund Is A Fraud.”

August 30, 2011

I recently attended a screening of the new documentary Chasing Madoff about a financial analyst, Harry Markopolos, who uncovered Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and spent almost a decade trying to get the SEC to investigate. One of his filing with the SEC was entitled The World’s Largest Hedge Fund Is A Fraud, but that wasn’t enough [...]

Insider Trading: A Window On Our Economy

April 7, 2011

Insider trading is making more headlines than we have seen since Ivan Boesky was fitted with handcuffs back in 1986. This morning’s newspapers report the arrests of Matthew Kluger and Garrett Bauer, a lawyer-trader pair who have apparently been at it for seventeen years. A third party in the scheme is cooperating with authorities. Yesterday, [...]

The SEC’s Problem With the First Amendment

March 11, 2011

The SEC’s approach to regulating US securities markets relies on controlling speech: they compel “disclosures”, prohibit certain statements, and impose onerous requirements on others. All of this is difficult to reconcile with the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech. Last week, the Supreme Court affirmed that the Westboro Baptist Church, based in Topeka, Kansas, [...]

Financial Reform: Sound Bites and Window Dressing

January 8, 2011

On Thursday, Representative Michele Bachmann (Tea Party Republican of Minnesota) introduced a bill to repeal the Dodd-Frank financial reform. With the Senate and Obama standing in the way, it won’t go anywhere. But who cares? The 2008 market crisis should have prompted serious reforms. Instead, we got sweeping window dressing. Dodd-Frank left in place the [...]

Facebook and Goldman Sachs: What You Should Know

January 5, 2011

If you are one of the lucky few investors Goldman Sachs is offering pre-IPO shares of Facebook to, buy all you can afford! The deal will be squeaky clean, and you will make gobs of money. Goldman Sachs will do everything possible to ensure you do. How do I know? Let’s connect a few dots. [...]

Barney Frank: Gambling is a Financial Service.

July 29, 2010

On Wednesday, the House Financial Services Committee approved two bills to legalize Internet gambling. The committee is supposed to oversee Wall Street. They are the same body that rubber stamped much of the financial deregulation that lead to the 2001 and 2008 stock market panics. These same people spearheaded the loophole-riddled financial regulatory reform Barack [...]

Race To the Bottom

May 3, 2007

In recent months, a number of studies have been released addressing the question of whether burdensome US financial regulations are making US financial markets less competitive—driving fledgling corporations to go public in other, more lightly regulated jurisdictions. The first study was released last November by a recently formed Committee on Capital Markets Regulation (CCMR). Another [...]