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HomeKhuzami Goes Through The Revolving Door
Posted by Larry Doyle on July 23rd, 2013 9:54 AM |
How do people feel about the performance of the SEC over the last number of years?
Seriously. On a scale of 1-10 (1 being horrendous and 10 being superb), please share your opinion as to how the SEC has gone about pursuing its mission of protecting investors and our markets while overseeing the manner in which Wall Street’s banks and money managers run their operations.
I ask this very basic question as a means of also grading the performance of the SEC’s Director of Enforcement, Robert Khuzami, during this period. (more…)
Manipulating Electricity: When Will Madness End?
Posted by Larry Doyle on July 22nd, 2013 7:25 AM |
Do readers recall how the morally depraved crowd at Enron manipulated the electricity markets so aggressively in California in 2000 as to force the state to implement rolling blackouts?
I am assuming there are some in our audience who not only remember the rolling blackouts, but actually lived through them.
Market manipulation of a basic good or service is a destructive force like none other. Many in America and around the world will dismiss the manipulation that goes on in a structured products market, such as mortgage-backed securities or auction-rate securities. They will similarly dismiss the clandestine dealings within the credit derivatives space or the arcane world of high-frequency trading. (more…)
Detroit Files Chapter 9: What Lies Ahead?
Posted by Larry Doyle on July 19th, 2013 12:23 PM |
With no surprise to absolutely anybody, the City of Detroit filed bankruptcy yesterday via Chapter 9.
How does an entity such as Detroit get to the point of being 18 billion in debt? Well, I addressed that point a month ago in writing, Detroit: D is for Disaster.
There will be years worth of likely challenging negotiations and contested legal battles among Detroit’s creditors (primarily the pensioners and bondholders). Those within the municipal bond market and beyond will be watching this play out with bated breath. (more…)
International Whistleblowers
Posted by Larry Doyle on July 19th, 2013 11:02 AM |
I love when my blog attracts comments from people who share riveting insights and perspectives of real world experiences that can help others who might navigate to these parts.
Not that all — or at least most — of the comments left here are not valuable but some truly stand out.
One left here just yesterday in reaction to my recent commentary, Wall Street: Culture of Silence, confirmed much of what I believe and also highlighted an organization that might be of very real service to those who have information of improprieties but do not know where to turn or what to do. (more…)
Preet Bharara: Big Bark, But Where’s The Bite?
Posted by Larry Doyle on July 19th, 2013 9:19 AM |
The US Attorney for the southern district of New York, Preet Bharara, certainly occupies one of the most powerful positions within law enforcement in the nation.
Yet here we sit 5 full years from the outset of what any reasonably intelligent individual knows is a fraud-induced and executed crisis, and what do we have to show for meaningful justice?
Aside from the prosecution of a handful of ne’er-do-well hedge fund nitwits and an array of shareholder paid fines, the record books to date have very little to show for justice.
I found myself thinking of this track record as I listened to Bharara inform CNBC’s Jim Cramer that nobody and no institution is or should be too big to jail. I am not saying Bharara’s job is an easy one but there comes a point in time when it is put up or shut up. I think most in America would say we have passed that point. (more…)
Bernanke Walks It Back
Posted by Larry Doyle on July 18th, 2013 8:53 AM |
It took a few weeks, but the relatively recent smokescreen of a strengthening economy put forth by Ben Bernanke began to lift yesterday.
I find it especially interesting that it was not some new string of weak economic data that prompted the Fed chair to express increased caution about what is truly going on in the real world economy.
In fact, for what I believe might be the first time, Bernanke cautiously addressed the fact that the structural changes in our economy reflected in a significant decline in the labor force participation rate might be more indicative of our economic health than the actual unemployment rate.
A whiff of the truth amidst the daily diet of verbal diarrhea emanating from D.C? What a novel concept. (more…)
Wall Street: Culture of Silence
Posted by Larry Doyle on July 17th, 2013 8:02 AM |
Wall Street often gets very quiet during the hot, hazy days of summer.
Yet if we were to take a deeper look into Wall Street, it is eerily quiet in many corners of the industry all too often. How so? Wall Street’s code of silence, in which those with knowledge of wrongdoing or improprieties remain quiet, was supposed to change with the new Dodd-Frank whistleblower program.
How is that program doing? (more…)
Fabulous Fab The Fall Guy
Posted by Larry Doyle on July 16th, 2013 8:46 AM |
America has certainly been fed a healthy diet of bluster by a wide array of regulators and government officials about cleaning up Wall Street over the last few years.
Those watching closely are well aware, though, that justice on Wall Street typically comes in small packages, token fines, and a whole lot of statements that include “neither admit nor deny.”
Let’s pause and think of all the criminal activity and otherwise unsavory behaviors that have transpired within the industry over the last handful of years: (more…)
Only If The Price is Right
Posted by Larry Doyle on July 15th, 2013 11:16 AM |
Regulators and the general media have a way of vilifying people and products in a manner that strikes me as overly simplistic.
All too often, I see situations in which those charged with protecting the public interest take a belated “ready, shoot, aim” approach and promote that as upholding their mandate.
Well, years after the crisis that took down our global economy, we remain mired in a sea of captured regulators and compliant media.
I maintain that to a large extent, investors — and consumers as well — remain largely on their own in terms of meaningful investor education and protection. (more…)
Breaking News: DOJ Whistleblowers Charge Assistant AG Thomas Perez with Discrimination, Retaliation
Posted by Larry Doyle on July 12th, 2013 9:16 PM |
All too often, whistleblowers in our nation have found themselves ignored, intimidated, or fired.
I have welcomed highlighting the stories of many heroic whistleblowers (Peter Sivere, Mark Mensack, Gary Aguirre, Joe Sciddurlo, David Weber) who have been subjected to just such heinous treatment by the powerful and privileged.
I welcome doing so again. In a breaking press release, we learn that a number of whistleblowers from inside the Department of Justice are sounding the siren on Assistant Attorney General (and the prospective Secretary of Labor) Tom Perez.
What do the whistleblowers allege? (more…)
