bank bailout

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The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission examines the collapse of Bear Stearns, the Wall Street brokerage firm that ended up being merged with JPMorgan Chase during the heart of the financial crisis. Bear Stearns argues that unsubstantiated rumors precipitated its collapse, but commissioners help make the case that it was Bear Stearns own business practices, forged in a deregulated environment, that laid it low.

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J.P. Morgan Chase, America's largest warehouse of arrogant financial elites, has issued yet another deceptive lobbyist smear in the guise of an "analyst report." Yesterday, the megabank's Chief Economist James Glassman launched a broadside against Sen. more »

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Despite all of the attention heaped on the Treasury Department and the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the Federal Reserve served as the chief bank bailout engine in the U.S. economy during the Great Financial Crash of 2008, and remains the government's top bailout agency today. more »

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Today is the big day: thousands of people will march on Wall Street this afternoon to protest big bank abuses. more »

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6:05

This hearing has now been going for more than eight hours, and for better or for worse, I need to head over to do an interview with Al Jazeera English. It goes on at 7:00. I'll be talking about financial reform, in addition to the Goldman fraud case.

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Last night, Senate Republicans proved beyond any doubt that when it comes to the economy, they stand with Wall Street and against everybody else. Joined by lone Democrat Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), Republicans successfully filibustered the procedural technicality of opening debate on Wall Street reform. It's an unmistakable ploy to kill the bill and collect campaign cash from bigwig bankers. The coming weeks won't be pretty.

Republicans are going to be battered by this filibuster. Financial reform is popular, and nobody on Capitol Hill wants to be seen as the agents of Wall Street in Washington come November. Republicans are hoping to rhetorically counter Obama's proposals, negotiate a fatally weakened reform package, and then vote with Democrats for reform-in-name-only before the elections. But the U.S. financial system is broken and voters know it needs strong medicine. more »

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Sarah Palin's broadside against the Obama administration's Wall Street reform proposal is an interesting study in, well, hackery. One the one hand, her latest Facebook post is a disingenuous smear, loaded with outright lies. On the other, she's kind of onto something, in her own horrible way. more »

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President Barack Obama identified five major problems on Wall Street in his speech at Cooper Union today. Unfortunately, the solutions he has proposed to these problems either will not work, or are not included in the legislation that passed the Senate Banking Committee under the stewardship of Chris Dodd (D-CT). Here they are, one-by-one:

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Despite strong rhetoric against aggressive Wall Street lobbying and deceptive Republican attacks, President Barack Obama appears ready to declare victory on a tepid and ineffective financial reform bill. more »

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