Category Archives: William K. Black

Yglesias pours the Geithner, Holder, Breuer (GHB) banksters immunity doctrine in our drinks

By William K. Black

It’s early, but Salon has published on January 30, 2013 either the funniest or saddest column of the year to date: “Are Banks Too Big To Prosecute?” 

The column is attributed to Matthew Yglesias, a blogger who studied philosophy as an undergraduate.  It could be a brilliantly ironic satire of the Geithner, Holder and Breuer doctrine of immunity for banksters (which I am dubbing “GHB” for short).   GHB is the “roofie” that the Obama administration gave us so the banksters could screw us repeatedly with impunity.  Alternatively, and far more likely, Yglesias has written the saddest and most immoral apologia for elite white-collar crime that has yet made it into electronic bits.  It takes a rerouted beginning student of philosophy, posing as a commentator on finance, to replace what should be a discussion that includes virtue ethics with a virtue-free, criminology-free, and economics-free apologia for the felons who became wealthy by costing the Nation $20 trillion and 10 million jobs.

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NEP’s William Black in Davos

William Black’s Speech at the 2013 Public Eye Awards in Davos Switzerland.

The Handmaiden of Capitalism v. the “Swamp” Denizen of Detroit

By William K. Black

A preliminary note:

Greetings from Davos!  I’m actually writing this over the mid-Atlantic as I return from being a keynote speaker at the annual “Public Eye” “shame prize” awarded to Goldman Sachs for its abuses.  The shame prize award was made in Davos during the World Economic Forum as a counter-WEF event.  Shell also “won” a shame prize, but I spoke on Goldman Sachs, the role of epidemics of accounting control fraud, and the WEF’s anti-regulatory and pro-executive compensation policies.  I explained that the anti-regulatory policies were intended to fuel the destructive regulatory “race to the bottom” and why the executive and professional compensation policies maximized the incentives to defraud.  I also explained that WEF was a fraud denier.  Collectively, these three WEF policies contributed to creating the intensely criminogenic environments that produce the epidemics of accounting control fraud driving our worst financial crises.  Detailed written developments of these arguments can be found here on our UMKC economics blog: New Economic Perspectives. Continue reading

By their responses ye shall know them

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

A preliminary note:

Greetings from Davos!  I’m actually writing this over the mid-Atlantic as I return from being a keynote speaker at the annual “Public Eye” “shame prize” awarded to Goldman Sachs for its abuses.  The shame prize award was made in Davos during the World Economic Forum as a counter-WEF event.  Shell also “won” a shame prize, but I spoke on Goldman Sachs, the role of epidemics of accounting control fraud, and the WEF’s anti-regulatory and pro-executive compensation policies.  I explained that the anti-regulatory policies were intended to fuel the destructive regulatory “race to the bottom” and why the executive and professional compensation policies maximized the incentives to defraud.  I also explained that WEF was a fraud denier.  Collectively, these three WEF policies contributed to creating the intensely criminogenic environments that produce the epidemics of accounting control fraud driving our worst financial crises.  Detailed written developments of these arguments can be found here on our UMKC economics blog: New Economic Perspectives. Continue reading

Goldman Sachs Proof that God hates its Customers

By William K. Black

The chief executive of Goldman Sachs, which has attracted widespread media attention over the size of its staff bonuses, says he believes banks serve a social purpose and are “doing God’s work.”

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Goldman Sachs: Doing “God’s Work” by inflicting the Wages of Sin Globally

By William K. Black

The central point that I want to stress as a white-collar criminologist and effective financial regulator is that Goldman Sachs is not a singular “rotten apple” in a healthy bushel of banks.  Goldman Sachs is the norm for systemically dangerous institutions (SDIs) (the so-called “too big to fail” banks).  Impunity from the laws, crony capitalism that degrades democracy, and massive national subsidies produce exceptionally criminogenic environments.  Those environments are so perverse that they produce epidemics of “control fraud.”  Control fraud occurs when the persons who control a seemingly legitimate entity use it as a “weapon” to defraud.  In finance, accounting is the “weapon of choice.”  It is important to remember, however, that other forms of control fraud maim and kill thousands.

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The OCC’s Tragic Response to the Frontline expose: The Untouchables

By William K. Black

On January 25, 2013, I made this comment on Frontline’s web site discussing its documentary: “The Untouchables” and an accompanying (January 22, 2013) article by Jason Breslow entitled: Were Bankers Jailed In Past Financial Crises?

I addressed two statements in that article.  The first statement reads:

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Why the World Economic Forum and Goldman Sachs are Capitalism’s Worst Enemies

By William K. Black

It is fitting that Goldman Sachs is the recipient of this year’s “Public Eye” designation, but it is even more fitting that it is being announced during the World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos.  Goldman Sachs exemplifies the travesty that WEF has created.  It is not the worst of the worst.  It is representative of the financial world of systemically dangerous institutions (SDIs) that are spreading crony capitalism through the West.  The SDIs are the so-called “too big to fail (or prosecute)” banks.

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Blocking a bad idea that enriches the rich: Peterson, Austerity, and the Washington Consensus

By William K. Black

John Williamson, a Peterson Institute “senior fellow” coined the term “the Washington Consensus” at a conference in 1989.

Williamson joined the Institute in 1981 when it was founded.  Pete Peterson is the Republican billionaire from Wall Street who has dedicated his life to proselytizing for lower taxes on the wealthy, stringent spending cuts in social programs, and privatizing Social Security – the unholy grail of Wall Street that would provide our largest banks with hundreds of billions of dollars in additional investment fees.  Peterson has funded many groups to evangelize for these neo-liberal dogmas.

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German growth goes negative but Merkel’s press becomes more glowing

By William K. Black

It is good to be Angela Merkel.  Growth in Germany goes sharply negative in the last quarter of 2012 and press reports emphasize how sound the German economy is because it is a net exporter.  This article analyses how the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times presented the news about Germany’s economy.  I show that the presentation reveals more about the pathologies of our major media than about the pathologies of Germany and the Eurozone.

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