Category Archives: William K. Black

Larry Summers’ Take on Efficient Markets and Regulators: Brilliance v. Idiots

Posted on September 2, 2013 by Devin Smith | 3 comments

By William K. Black
(cross posted from Benzinga.com)

Perhaps the only useful thing to come out of the Obama administration’s inept contest between Larry Summers and Janet Yellen as Ben Bernanke’s successor is the purported agreement among economists and other policy makers that the Fed Chair should make the introduction of effective regulation and supervision by the Federal Reserve a top priority. It would be even better if this agreement were real and would be sustained. Regulation and supervision have never risen above tertiary concerns at the Fed and every institutional pressure will push the new Fed Chair to ignore supervision.

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Posted in William K. Black

Tagged accounting control fraud, banksters, gresham's dynamic, Larry Summers

Assad Reveals He’s a Bank CEO: Obama Ends Threats, Bails Out Syria & Grants Immunity

Posted on September 1, 2013 by Devin Smith | 11 comments

By William K. Black

I do not think the twin epidemics of mortgage loan origination fraud (appraisal and “liar’s” loans) and the various epidemics of post-origination fraud by financial institutions are comparable crimes to the use of chemical weapons. The President’s job, however, is to deter a wide range of criminal conduct. The elite fraud epidemics cost over $11 trillion in losses to households alone and 10 million American jobs. The cost of these fraud epidemics is so vast that deterring future epidemics should be a high priority of every administration. The refusal of the Obama and Bush administrations to prosecute any elite banker whose actions contributed to the crisis has done the opposite of deterring future fraud epidemics – it has encouraged them.

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Posted in William K. Black

Tagged Assad, banksters, obama, systemically dangerous institution, too big to prosecute

Jared Bernstein Tries to Reimagine Larry Summers as a Foe of the Banksters

Posted on August 30, 2013 by Devin Smith | 9 comments

By William K. Black

Jared Bernstein was Vice President Joe Biden’s chief economist and was the strongest economic voice within the Obama administration opposing inflicting austerity on the Nation in response to the Great Recession. His August 28, 2013 column is entitled “Summers and the Banks.” He begins by acknowledging that Obama had dreadfully “misplayed” the choice of Ben Bernanke’s successor as Fed Chair.

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Tagged accounting control fraud, Jared Bernstein, Larry Summers

NEP’s William Black appears on HuffPost Live

Posted on August 29, 2013 by Devin Smith | 1 comment

William Black appeared on HuffPost Live with Mike Sacks on the Four Massive Economic Threats episode. Black discusses sovereign currencies vs. austerity.

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Posted in William K. Black

Tagged austerity, sovereign currency

Zero Prosecutions of Elite Banksters is too many Prosecutions for the Wall Street Journal

Posted on August 29, 2013 by Devin Smith | 6 comments

By William K. Black

Unintentional self-parody was the result to a coordinated effort by the systemically dangerous institutions’ (SDIs) press flacks to gin up outrage that the Department of Justice (DOJ) would have the audacity to sue the SDIs’ for their manifold violations of the law. The Wall Street Journal recalled one of its former opinion page pundits to active duty as a shill for the Street. George Melloan’s August 25 column warned:

“If dubious prosecutions continue to mount, they could backfire on the regulatory agencies and further diminish sinking public confidence in government. Ask the folks at the IRS.”

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Posted in William K. Black

Tagged banksters

The Mystery of Cannibal Capitalists and Ecuadorian Entrepreneurs

Posted on August 26, 2013 by Devin Smith | 5 comments

By William K. Black

This column was prompted by an unusual source for me. Cuenca High Life is a site for ex pats living in Ecuador. It often discusses serious issues of national importance. The three issues a recent volume discussed are all important economic issues and they have prompted a fourth economic issue I will discuss in this column.

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Tagged cannibal capitalism, correa, crony capitalism

Mueller: I Crippled FBI Effort v. White-Collar Crime, My Successor Will Make it Worse

Posted on August 26, 2013 by Devin Smith | 7 comments

By William K. Black
(Cross posted at Benzinga.com)

FBI Director Robert Mueller is taking his victory lap as he steps down after 12 years of service. I have done three articles in a series that explains how the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) conned the FBI into adopting the Tea Party’s mythology about the causes of the crisis – virginal banks beset by ultra-sophisticated fraudulent hairdressers. The MBA created a faux definition of mortgage fraud under which the bank and its senior officers were always the victims instead of the perpetrators.

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7 Comments

Posted in William K. Black

Tagged accounting control fraud, banksters, FBI, mortgage fraud, Robert Mueller, white collar crime

Bhide: Pick a “Boring” Fed Chair because Supervision is the Key and it requires “Dullness”

Posted on August 23, 2013 by Devin Smith | 4 comments

By William K. Black

This is my second column discussing Federal Reserve (Fed) regulation in the context of the question of who President Obama should appoint to be Ben Bernanke’s successor. This column focuses on the sudden discovery by economists (and, purportedly, Obama) that the Fed Chair’s most important function is to regulate. (If that sounds like common sense to you, (1) you are not an orthodox economist and (2) you do not understand the Fed’s culture.) This column begins the process of explaining why most of the economists and finance scholars (Robert Prasch is the exception) writing to urge that the new Fed Chair be chosen based on their regulatory skills demonstrate that they lack any understanding of the fundamentals of financial crises and supervision (and aiding prosecutions). This column begins my response to Amar Bhide’s op ed entitled “Wanted: A Boring Leader for the Fed.”

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NEP’s William Black appears on HuffPost Live

Posted on August 22, 2013 by Devin Smith | 3 comments

The legal culture of big-time settlements can short-circuit the law, protecting wrongdoers from punishment, trial or even an admission of guilt. That’s just what the government has done for the major banks implicated in sweeping mortgage fraud. Is it too late to rectify the big banks role in the housing and financial crisis? Bill and other panelists speak with Alyona Minkovski on this subject.

3 Comments

Posted in William K. Black

Tagged banksters, Great Financial Crisis, mortgage fraud

Think Global, Act Local: the SacBee Needs to Write about its U.S. Attorney

Posted on August 21, 2013 by Devin Smith | 2 comments

By William K. Black

The Sacramento Bee is a paper with a fine pedigree that just wrote a powerful editorial entitled: “Wall Street needs to be schooled in the rule of law.”

“When the president feels the need to call out his own people for not moving fast enough on new rules for Wall Street, you know that things have really bogged down.

That’s what Barack Obama did Monday, urging top financial regulators to get going on enforcing the Dodd-Frank law, passed by Congress three years ago but still adamantly opposed by big banks.

Wall Street’s freewheeling ways and outright fraud worsened the worst financial crisis this nation has faced since the Great Depression. Nearly five years later, many large financial institutions are making big profits again, but relatively few wrongdoers have seen the inside of a prison cell.

Precious little has truly changed.

Who gets the short end of the foot-dragging? The vast majority of Americans, of course, those who aren’t favored clients of Wall Street firms. You can bet we’re the ones who will be left holding the bag if there’s another crash because proper safeguards aren’t in place.”

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