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HomeThe Stock Exchange Brothel and Regulatory Pimps
Posted by Larry Doyle on April 7th, 2014 11:37 AM |
I am compelled to share a fabulous post from Wall Street on Parade that outlines the corruptible relationship and practices that lie at the core of the ongoing debate around high frequency trading.
Major props to Pam Martens for drawing further attention to the ugly reality within this incestuous relationship. Other media outlets should be so fearless in revealing the truth of the captured regulators.
The fallout from the new book, “Flash Boys” by Michael Lewis continues. Yesterday, Jonathon Trugman wrote in the New York Post that “These traders who use the HOV lane to get ahead of investors could not do their trades without the full knowledge and complicity of the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq.” (more…)
Michael Lewis on HFT: “It’s All A Scam”; Here’s the Cause and Effect
Posted by Larry Doyle on March 30th, 2014 8:42 PM |
Major props to renowned writer Michael Lewis for using his enormous platform to direct light on the scam that has come to define our equity markets under the construct of high frequency trading.
As Lewis states, the scam is not only restricted to HFT activity but rather the market as a whole has become a scam. Powerful words and worth the minute to listen to the video clip below.
But let’s go deeper than that. (more…)
DANGER: Unknown Size, Location of Financial WMD
Posted by Larry Doyle on February 20th, 2014 6:31 AM |
If there are hackers in far off countries who can figure out how to penetrate the computer systems of our nation’s banks and retailers, how is it that a full 5 years after the greatest crisis since the Depression that our financial regulators are not able to properly monitor the financial weapons of mass destruction, aka derivatives contracts, running throughout our system?
I will tell you how. Because the ‘too big to fail’ banks have zero interest in making that happen. If anybody needed any further reason to break up our ‘too big to fail’ banking oligopoly, Bloomberg provides it in this recent editorial:
The recent turmoil in emerging markets raises an urgent question: If things get worse, if markets plunge or a government defaults, do regulators know which banks, hedge funds or other institutions are most at risk? (more…)
Senator Warren Indicts Regulators ‘In Bed with Wall Street’
Posted by Larry Doyle on February 7th, 2014 10:06 AM |
“The question I’m asking is whether or not there’s adequate deterrent to prevent the largest financial institutions in this country from breaking the law,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said at a Senate Banking Committee hearing today. “Right now, if financial institutions can just settle their claims out of court, and get a raise for settling them, then where’s the deterrent?”
Senator Warren pressed regulators about their current enforcement efforts, noting that the “the public has little confidence in regulators’ willingness to seek the kind of penalties that will actually deter future financial crimes.”
With those two statements, Senator Warren (D-MA) indicts the current scandalous practices if not outright corruption that lies at the intersection of Wall Street and Washington and provides the public’s concluding sentiment as detailed in In Bed with Wall Street. The clip runs a mere 6-minutes.
What to do about this? How about we start with the following:
1. Congress should launch a privately run Office of Whistleblower Protection.
2. Wall Street’s private police detail, that is the financial self-regulatory organization FINRA, should no longer have absolute immunity and should be subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
3. Wall Street arbitration should be optional and not mandatory so as to end the kangaroo court.
4. End the self-regulatory oversight of Wall Street.
5. BREAK UP THE ‘TOO BIG TO FAIL’ BANKS!!
Is anybody in favor of the ongoing cronyism and corruption that defines our current system?
Larry Doyle
Please order a copy of my book, In Bed with Wall Street: The Conspiracy Crippling Our Global Economy.
For those reading this via a syndicated outlet or receiving it via e-mail or another delivery, please visit the blog to view the embedded video clip and to comment on this piece of ‘sense on cents.’
Please subscribe to all my work via e-mail.
The opinions expressed are my own. I am a proponent of real transparency within our markets so that investor confidence and investor protection can be achieved.
Richard Bowen: The Corruption Extends to the Highest Levels of Government
Posted by Larry Doyle on September 23rd, 2013 10:02 AM |
I thank the many devoted readers of Sense on Cents who made sure I was aware of a riveting, must-read article in yesterday’s New York Times written by Bill Cohan, a Wall Street-Washington critic without peer.
Cohan writes of the travails of Richard Bowen, former whistleblower at Citigroup, who ran headlong into the fortress manned by Robert Rubin and friends. Bowen was a Citi employee who blew the whistle regarding the preponderance of defective mortgages running through the Citi pipeline.
He brought the knowledge of this activity to the highest perch within the bank including the attention of Robert Rubin. How was he treated? With what most would define as ‘the silent treatment.’ Once silenced, he was then subsequently shown the door.
While Bowen was pushed out of Citigroup back in 2009, he has not been silenced since then. (more…)
Morning Joe : How Wall Street Won
Posted by Larry Doyle on September 13th, 2013 9:27 AM |
Lehman Brothers failed on September 15, 2008.
We are now two days away from the 5 year anniversary of that fateful day and the unfolding of a string of events that continue to ripple across our global economy and markets.
As with the anniversaries of most cataclysmic events, we can now expect an ongoing stream of dialogue as to what led to the crisis and how things have played out since then.
The folks at Morning Joe had a brief 7-minute discussion recently with Time magazine editor Radhika Jones on this topic and these questions. They definitely hit upon some of the key issues but they do not use the one key word to define what really happened both pre and post crisis. What is that word? Let’s take a listen first to what they have to say: (more…)
5 years After Lehman: Has Anything Really Changed?
Posted by Larry Doyle on September 10th, 2013 7:07 AM |
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
For those in and around Wall Street and Washington who pretend that there has been meaningful change in the issues that brought about our crisis in 2008, I have endless archives to highlight all too much remains the same.
Rather than diving into the archives, though, let’s navigate a Bloomberg commentary that qualifies as a Sense on Cents instant classic (and would serve as a fabulous promo for my upcoming book).
The simple fact is both Wall Street and Washington remain very much the same as details within Banks Seen at Risk Five Years After Lehman Collapse attest. What is Wall street currently? (more…)
Wall Street Criminal Referrals: 96% Decline
Posted by Larry Doyle on August 23rd, 2013 7:00 AM |
How deep in the tank have our regulators gone over the years to protect Wall Street rather than upholding their mandate to provide real investor protection?
Really deep.
How might we measure the depth?
Check out the following incredible statistic highlighted by one of my favorite financial journalists, that being Bloomberg’s Jonathan Weil. (more…)
Spitzer: Lanny Breuer at DOJ Was a Disaster
Posted by Larry Doyle on June 20th, 2013 8:26 AM |
Hat tip to Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture and our friends at eWallStreeter.
Say what you want about Eliot Spitzer’s personal shortcomings but when it comes to many of the regulatory capture issues addressed regularly at this blog, he is not evasive or deferential as so many former pols and regulators are wont to be.
True to form, Spitzer pulls no punches in a recent Bloomberg Law interview. What does he think of the former Assistant AG for the Criminal Division of the US Department of Justice Lanny Breuer’s tenure? Simply a “disaster.”
What does he think of the revolving door, current SEC chair Mary Jo White, and the practice of “neither admit nor deny”? (more…)
Taibbi Further Investigates Furey v SEC
Posted by Larry Doyle on June 3rd, 2013 10:11 AM |
Wouldn’t you like to have been a fly on the wall to witness what really went on — and still goes on — within the offices of the SEC and our other financial regulators?
Oh the stories and tales of woe that one might be able to share. Every now and then, though, one does not need to worry about being a fly because details of internal intrigue make their way out of the commission.
To that end, a few weeks back both Bloomberg’s Bill Cohan and I shed light on the incredible allegations of incompetence, negligence, if not outright corruption within the SEC made by an internal whistleblower Kathleen Furey.
Over the weekend Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi provided even greater transparency on the incredible — or in light of what we have learned about the SEC, perhaps not so unbelievable — allegations made by Ms. Furey in her whistleblower complaint. Those familiar with this case may recall that Furey alleged her superiors within the SEC’s New York office maintained that they did not handle cases dealing with investment managers. Incredible? Unbelievable? Maybe not so much.
(more…)
