Yves Smith

Bob Woodward's releasing a new book, so we are now seeing articles based on it. more »

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After a big buildup, the hacker group Anonymous released its first batch of whistleblower emails regarding Bank of America. The result was ... confusion. Maybe they're real, maybe not. (We assume they are.) Maybe they're a letdown. Maybe not. Here's what we know and what we don't know so far.

Let's start with what we don't know: more »

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Just when you thought Wall Street couldn't defraud the economy any further, it went ahead and did it. After pushing millions of borrowers into foreclosure with fraudulent loans, big banks are now being implicated in a massive new fraud scandal involving the foreclosure process itself. more »

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It's been two days, and the new Basel III bank regulations are still lousy. more »

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A hedge fund manager's "investor letter" - really more of a staged, theatrical tantrum - has been getting a lot of attention lately. Daniel S. Loeb's diatribe demonstrates that banker greed is still out of control, and that it's as short-sighted and destructive as ever. The fact that Loeb is a registered Democrat and former Obama supporter doesn't matter as much as some people think. It's the same old story: Politics is just a means to an end, and the end in this case is self-enrichment.

If Loeb's pose as Hedge Fund Revolutionary seems like a ridiculous form of populism, remember: The Tea Party began with an angry outburst on the Chicago Board of Trade, from traders who were outraged that homeowners might be given a fraction of the aid bankers received. Loeb's letter is mostly a marketing ploy, but if he can become the Robespierre of the Hedge Fund Revolution I'm sure that would be fine with him too. more »

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