Category Archives: Financial crisis

Goldman Sachs’ promises not so transparent

ProPublica columnist Jesse Eisinger offers a withering take on Goldman Sachs’ promise last week to behave better and be more open about its business dealings.

In a nutshell, Eisinger finds the 63-page Business Standards Committee Report a public relations stunt.

” … Some of it was welcome, like the increased financial disclosure. Some may fall by the wayside, like most New Year’s resolutions. Some seems as disingenuous as any piece of professional flackery,” Eisinger writes.

Eisinger’s column: Goldman’s Self-Help: Eat, Pay, Trade

Goldman Sachs’ Business Standards Committee Report

Evil bankers and SEC incompetence at the movies

The financial industry has officially hit bottom. I found convincing
Box+Office.jpgproof last weekend at my neighborhood cineplex.

When an industry is the butt of big screen jokes by Will Farrell and an egg-shaped evil cartoon banker, it’s clear you can go no lower.

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Former SEC chairman criticizes financial reform bill

Former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt offers scathing comments on the financial reform bill in an interview with ProPublica.

Levitt says it’s “ridiculous” to call the new bill the biggest financial reform since the Great Depression. The biggest omission from the bill is “shareholder access to the proxy,” he says.

Read the full interview here.

Credit crunch hurts biz park development

On Sunday, the News Sentinel and Knoxvillebiz.com, take a look at how the credit crunch has slowed development of Pellissippi Place, a technology business park being developed by Knox and Blount counties and the cities of Alcoa and Maryville.

Access to capital is hurting commercial development across the country. Both small businesses and public-private groups like the Industrial Development Board of Blount County, which owns Pellissippi Place, are having trouble getting loans.

Help could be on the way. But politics could get in the way. Now there’s a surprise.

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Gordon Gekko VS Sen. Bob Corker

With financial regulation reform the next big thing coming out of Washington, I thought it would be fun to watch that oldie, but goodie — “Wall Street.” Great movie.

Michael Douglas as Wall Street raider Gordon Gekko delivered one of the classic lines of cinema history –“Greed, for the lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works.”

Gekko’s doublespeak carried the day in that scene, but by the end of the movie good triumphed over evil.

Will the same be said when the current battle over financial reform ends?

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Greenspan spars with Congressional panel

Alan Greenspan is going head-to-head this morning with the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. The former head fo the Federal Reserve Board has already produced sparks.

Greenspan defends his record in this story.

And there’s this headline on the Barron’s Stocks to Watch blog: Greenspan: Blame it on the Berlin Wall

And this from the Wall Street Journal: Greenspan Warns of Future Crisis