The Lex column in the Financial Times reports that the rating agencies – Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s – are doing financially just fine and, well, even better than fine: McGraw Hill this week showed the ratings business is on the increase … Its Standard & Poor’s credit ratings agency, which accounts for the vast […]
Archive | Finance
Market Discipline? What Market Discipline?
By Kenneth Anderson on October 26, 2009 3:57 pm in Economy, Finance, Financial Crisis, Proposed Legislation, Regulation
The New York Times reports that Congress and the administration might soon reach some kind of view on legislation for addressing “too big to fail” institutions. Off the table is Paul Volker’s proposal to re-establish some line between commercial banking and proprietary trading – some updated Glass-Steagall demarcation. On the table is the Treasury’s proposal […]
Dividing Financial Institutions into Utilities and Casinos?
One proposal for addressing too big to fail, or to systemically interconnected to fail, among financial institutions is to separate out the proprietary trading and other “casino” activities from the “utilities” business of commercial banking with the public. In some ways (not all) it is a revival of the Glass-Steagall approach. Paul Volker has urged […]
Treasury Inc.: Is the Government a Controlling Shareholder?
In my last post I opened a discussion about my new paper, Treasury Inc.: How the Bailout Reshapes Corporate Theory and Practice, which you can download here. My thesis is that corporate law and theory goes haywire when the government, while enjoying sovereign immunity protection from corporate and securities law, takes control of a company […]
A Transaction Tax on Financial Transactions?
The Wall Street Journal has a new story from over the weekend on Democratic proposals, in Congress and the administration and from outside groups, to impose a tax on financial transactions (John D. McKinnon, Democrats Weigh Tax on Financial Transactions, WSJ, October 10, 2009): Taxing financial transactions on Wall Street is gathering support in high places. […]
Proposing New Law School Finance Courses – Bleg
I’m considering submitting two new course proposals to our curriculum committee at our law school here in DC. I’d be grateful for your pedagogical advice. One would be a reading-research seminar in law and economics on the current state of debate over the Efficient Market Hypothesis. I imagine we would read some standard economics articles […]
The Davis Polk Financial Crisis Manual
Via TaxProfBlog, I discovered the Davis Polk Financial Crisis Manual, in pdf. I read it quickly while covering my wife’s classes at St. Alban’s today – all quizzes and tests, so I had time to read while the boys were struggling with conjugating the pluperfect in Spanish. It’s really very good. 279 pages and available […]