The NYT reported that: Standard Chartered, the British bank, has agreed to pay New York’s top banking regulator $340 million to settle claims that it laundered hundreds of billions of dollars in tainted money for Iran and lied to regulators.(Dan here…We do not know how much remained with Standard Charter as various kinds of fees, […]

James Kwak offers a take on the election campaign so far, on how information is offered and accepted, and how ‘voters’ choose to respond: …Democrats should be worried, because Romney and Ryan have the better debating position. Their position is simple and superficially compelling: Government is bad. (Cf. the DMV—it’s state, not federal, and the […]

Peter J. Henning, a colleague of Linda Beale, poses the question in the NYT: Is That It for Financial Crisis Cases? Last week turned out to be a good one for Goldman Sachs. The Justice Department closed a criminal investigation of the firm and its chief executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein, and the firm disclosed that […]

In poker a “tell” is the physical giveaway or tic that lets you know someone is lying about his or her hand. In politics it’s the mode of evasion a politician chooses to sidestep a truth he or she doesn’t want to admit or to avoid saying something against self-interest. In his debut interview with Fox […]

… And when, exactly, did he pay that at-least-13% per year?  Might some of it have been paid under the 2009 IRS amnesty plan for people who’d been hiding money in secret overseas bank accounts, after the Swiss banks suddenly agreed to reveal to the IRS the identities of American account holders? Just wondering. 

Washington may not like straight talk, but I do. — Mitt Romney, yesterday Sooo, Governor, about those massive tax cuts for the wealthy ….  You know, including the elimination of all incomes taxes on capital gains and stock dividends, which your running mate’s budget proposal includes?  How, exactly, do you plan to balance the budget […]

I associate the phrase “unconventional monetary policy” with Joe Gagnon. Here we were in 2008 with the conventional monetary instrument — the target Federal Funds rate — pedal to the metal and the economy stalling. Many people said it was time for fiscal stimulus (I think Gagnon agreed). He also suggested unconventional monetary policy, by […]

by Linda Beale Romney’s Private Equity Magic Trick–equity manager’s gain, taxpayers’ losses (Reich Video) Mitt Romney claims that his business experience at Bain Capital is a superb qualification for the presidency.  He implies that this experience will carry over to his economic policies, with the suggestion that he will become a “job creator-in-chief” like all […]

A new Romney ad tells older voters to think of it this way: “The money you paid for your guaranteed health care is going to a massive new government program that’s not for you.” — Gail Collins, Middle-Age Blues, New York Times, this evening What?  If current Medicare recipients, and those who will begin receiving it within the […]