Archive for the ‘Games Bankers Play’ Category

The Subprime Mortgage Crisis-related Legal Investigations Will Discover Fraud and then Go Away Quietly.

Tuesday, February 5th, 2008

The SEC, FBI, Justice  Department, and New York State Attorney General’s Office, and French and German government regulatory authorities are all “looking into” the Subprime Mortgage Crisis. These agencies are investigating Citibank, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, Bear Stearns, UBS, Barclays, HSBC, Standard and Poors, Moody’s, Fitch, Countrywide, and The ...

The Bond Insurers: A Game of “Reverse Three Card Monty.”

Sunday, February 3rd, 2008

Lunchtime on Wall Street has a flavor all its own. The streets are dominated by pirate CD stands and floating games of Three Card Monty. This is a very simple game. There are three cards on the table. The dealer turns one face up; let’s say it’s the Ace of ...

The Subprime Mortgage Crisis: Part 7. The “Master Conduit” Ends the Beginning of the Crisis.

Thursday, January 31st, 2008

When deception becomes denial, the revelation of truth can be as painful as Don Quixote’s classic look in the mirror. The big banks’ “Quixote moment” came when the major banks and the Secretary of the Treasury got together over the weekend and asked themselves, relatively early in the crisis, “How ...

The Subprime Mortgage Crisis, Part 5: The Birth of the “Quants.”

Monday, January 28th, 2008

There are two kinds of banking “innovation.” First, the ones that make real money. These are hidden from public view or more often subtly described as one thing when in fact they are another. Banks have terrific problems protecting their genuine innovations. The buying and selling of banking assets is ...