Sky Blog
From the New Deal until the 1970s, banks were on a tight leash. Regulators controlled the rate of interest they could pay on deposits. Banks could not underwrite or deal in corporate securities. With some exceptions, they could not expand …
Many contemporary discussions of finance or of subjects that implicate finance – for example, federal budgetary or finance-regulatory policy – seem to be systematically colored by a seldom-examined presumption. We call this presumption the “intermediated scarce private capital myth.”
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On May 23, 2016, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed a $1.3 billion civil penalty imposed against Countrywide Home Loans, Inc., Bank of America, N.A., and related defendants (collectively, “Countrywide”) under the Financial Institutions Reform, …
“And we played the Hustle music. There were, you know, printed materials passed out,” with dance steps so “ideally we could all perform the Hustle in precision,” recalled the former Countrywide first vice president. “There was a lot of excitement. …
This post provides a 5 year review and evaluation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) which was established under the Dodd-Frank Act. The Dodd-Frank Act and the CFPB were a response to the financial and economic crisis that began …
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that federal prosecutors are pursuing criminal cases against bank executives for allegedly selling flawed mortgage securities. The crux of the cases? That the bankers ignored warnings they were packaging too many shaky mortgages into …
There is broad agreement that predatory subprime lending – along with faulty securitization practices – were important causes of the recent financial crisis. Although the U.S. economy has improved significantly since 2008, it has not fully returned to normal, in …
On March 25, 2015, the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (“CSBS”) and the American Association of Residential Mortgage Regulators (“AARMR”) issued for a 90-day public comment period a proposed set of baseline prudential regulatory standards for nonbank mortgage servicers and …
The debate over housing finance is odd even by the current standards of political debate in Washington, which sets a high bar.
Proposals to limit government involvement in housing finance have nothing to do with the failings of the system, …