Robert Waldmann claims that, after the invention of the mortgage based security, which clearly served to diversify risk, there have been three main purposes : weakening the effects of prudential regulations, weakening the effects of prudential charters and making balance sheets look better. I remain very ignorant about banking and real world finance. Some time […]

Robert Waldmann Republican Susan Collins proposed an amendment to tighten bank capital reqirements. It passed unanimously, but might be removed in conference because the Obama Treasury is opposed. The world is upside down. One key issue is whether banks can use “Trust preferred securities” to evade satisfy capital requirements. After the jump, I will ask […]

by Linda Bealecrossposted with AtaxingmatterSeventh Circuit confirms rejection of Ch. 11 bankruptcy for tax avoidance purposes What will they think up next as a way to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. One corporation decided to proclaim bankruptcy as a tax shelter. Luckily for the US, the bankruptcy judge would have none of it, […]

by Linda Bealecrosposted with Ataxingmatter Maule and Pappas on progressive taxation and the decreasing burden on the rich Maule and Pappas have been engaging in a debate on progressive taxation and the decreasing burden on the rich. See Canonizing the Rich, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. As Maule shows in his posts, the […]

By Daniel Becker Ok, if you have not heard, Mr Rand Paul made quite the impression during an interview with Rachel Maddow. The short of it: businesses should be free to discriminate as they see fit. It’s their right, though he’s not for discrimination. You know, citizens and all having equal rights. Well, there is […]

by Linda Bealecrossposted with Ataxingmatter Richard Abrams: debunking free marketarianism I’ve often written here about the problems of the naive, black-or-white view of economics that has been fostered by the Chicago School and Milton Friedman acolytes who talk of “free markets” as though markets exist in vaccum tubes unaffected by the social, cultural and legal […]

By Beverly Mannre-posted with permission of the authorThe Ann Arborist Sen. Jeff Sessions’ Habitual Conflations and Misrepresentations Prologue: The Slaughter-House Cases is the title of an 1873 Supreme Court opinion that was among the first to interpret some part of Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was the part of that amendment that required […]

by Mike Kimel Pethokoukis Blaming Congress From his perch at Reuters, James Pethokoukis writes (and this is his title) about 4 ways Congress caused the financial crisis. He quotes from a paper by Ross Levine. I have not read the Levine paper yet but the abstract does seem to indicate what Pethokoukis wrote. The abstract […]

by Linda Bealecrossposted with Ataxingmatter There’s a tax angle to everything–including the DeepWater Horizon oil spill There’s a tax angle to everything–including the DeepWater Horizon oil spillOil is still pouring out into the Gulf ocean from the well head of the DeepWater Horizon. The entire gulf is beginning to look like an oil slick, as […]