Tag archive for ‘Banks’

• SUBPRIME

  28 November 10 • 2 comments

  

  Young computer programmer Rob Donovan receives an emergency call from his boss at the First Malden Bank in Boston after the first successful cyberattack in American banking history scrambles thousands of account records. First Malden’s survival is on the line as furious customers and voracious reporters descend on the bank. Rob is part of the team trying to fix the damage, until the FBI charges him with the crime and brings his world crashing down. Facing prison time and the loss of his fiancée Lesley, Rob’s only chance of reclaiming his life lies in cutting through a web of mistrust and betrayal to uncover the startling truth behind the attack.

• Financial Reform and the Fungus Five

  20 May 10 • 3 comments

  Recently, I described financial reform as a “petri dish” of pending legislation. The government is tackling too many issues at the same time. Without constants—we don’t know how markets will react to all the moving pieces.

  It gets worse. Last night The Wall Street Journal profiled the back-room deals working their way through pending legislation. I guess you can hide anything in a 1,500 page document. And those legislative walkabouts are what trouble me.

  How can we trust financial reform when approval depends on non-related issues?

  Here are five “amendments” that have nothing to do with sub-prime debt, banking leverage, or even the flash crash of two weeks ago. I’ve dubbed them the “Fungus Five,” because they call into question the Congressional focus on “getting it right.”

• Goldman Sachs and the Tourre de Toxic—Stage 2

  21 April 10 • Comments Off

  Over the long term, there are no such thing as secrets. Over the long term, everything is transparent. And today, The New York Times provided a few clues about why Goldman lost $75 million, when it knew mortgages were turning bad.

• Goldman Sachs and the Tourre de Toxic

  19 April 10 • 2 comments

  Who hasn’t seen the news? The SEC accused Goldman Sachs of fraud, alleging it misrepresented an Abacus CDO. Banks lost $1 billion on the trade. And John Paulson, one of the gods of Greenwich, pocketed $1 billion.

  Here are three things I don’t get:

• Top 5 Ways for Wall Street to Regain Trust

  15 April 10 • 1 comment

  We’ve all heard about what Government should do to strengthen the financial industry but what about bankers themselves? If Wall Street is serious about maintaining leadership in global finance over the long term, banks could already be implementing smart changes to enable just that. Here’s what Wall Street can do right now to regain its credibility—without waiting for Washington.

• Bailout Strategy—Rip Off the Little Guy?

  22 February 10 • Comments Off

  

  Who needs TARP to bail out financial institutions? Your local supermarket carries a retail version at the checkout counter. We know the program as “gift cards.” Last week while I was grocery shopping, the gift-card display piqued my curiosity. So I took a few minutes to read the fine print on back of several packages. [...]

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