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 […]

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 […]

by Linda Beale Romryanomics–prosperity for the well-off fueled by austerity for the rest I’ve put off writing about stilted robo-Romney’s choice of the perpetual-smily-Ryan as veep about as long as I can, I suppose.  So let me talk about it in broad terms in this post.  In the next posts, I’ll discuss more methodically the […]

by Linda Beale ID theft as basis of systemic IRS tax refund fraud problems Early in 2012, the IRS and Justice Department announced a major crackdown on identity theft and enforcement efforts against tax refund fraud.  See IIRS, Identity Theft Crackdown Swweps Across the Nation: More than 200 Actions Taken in Past Week in 23 […]

Lifted from Robert’s stochastic thoughts on media: Wish I’d Typed this Bill Nothstine · Top Commenter · Living Liberally And, to be fair to Romney [brief interlude while Bill clutches frantically, Strangelove-like, at the hand that just typed those words], if he said it on TV that can be considered at least prima facie evidence […]

Mark Thoma goes ballistic: I don’t understand why someone with such a clownish views is lauded as a policy wonk: What did Ayn Rand teach Paul Ryan about monetary policy?, by Brad Plumer: In 2005, Paul Ryan explained that he often looks to Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged” as inspiration for his views on monetary […]