Wall Street's Near Death Experience
posted by SeizeTheDay on Oct 6, 2009 - 31 comments

John Dillinger was paroled from Indiana State Prison in May 1933 after serving eight years for assault and battery and attempted robbery and launched a Midwest Crime Wave from June 1933 to June 1934. [more inside]
posted by kirkaracha on Jun 25, 2009 - 28 comments

US unveils banking reform plans. But will the proposed measures adequately address the causes of the current crisis? [more inside]
posted by atmosphere on Jun 17, 2009 - 17 comments

The commercials are all over television — and they certainly are attention-grabbing. They’re the ones where the heavy, bald guy is sitting in his easy chair talking in a squeaky female voice about all the clothes he bought — including a bustier. Or the little old lady speaking with the gruff voice of a younger man about the sweet motorcycle she now owned. Identity theft is a serious crime — one that is occurring with an alarming frequency. The Identity Theft Manifesto explains how criminals get your personal info, and what you can do about it.
posted by netbros on Jun 1, 2009 - 15 comments

Couple flee after bank mistakenly gives them 10m $
posted by johannahdeschanel on May 21, 2009 - 112 comments

The second most powerful United States Senator admits, "And the banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place." [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on Apr 30, 2009 - 55 comments

Nationalize. Reorganize. Decentralize. anewwayforward.org wants you to organize a protest on April 11^th to express your frustration and disapproval with how our elected officials have handled the economic crisis.
posted by geos on Mar 17, 2009 - 62 comments

Frontline: Inside The Meltdown. Synopsis here. [more inside]
posted by gman on Feb 20, 2009 - 47 comments

The Congressional Oversight Panel, headed by Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Warren, notes in its third monthly report that for every $100 Treasury spent on its ten largest TARP deals, it received back only $66 worth of assets -- significantly less than for roughly comparable private parties.
posted by shivohum on Feb 19, 2009 - 23 comments

The savings and loan’s decision not to settle the lawsuit made no economic sense for a solvent institution, but it made perfect sense if their principle objective was to maintain the false appearance of solvency for as long as possible. The savings and loan was undoubtedly inflating all of their assets, including my homely little lawsuit, to postpone the inevitable.
What reminded me of that incident from my late, unlamented law practice was the persistent failure of financial institutions to modify mortgages voluntarily. It makes perfect economic sense for a safe and sound institution to avoid the ruinous costs of foreclosure by agreeing to reduce the principal and monthly payment for homeowners who can pay a mortgage, but not the one they’ve got. But according to the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys, fewer than ten percent of mortgage modifications in November reduced the principal. About half added late payments and penalties to the principal, and either increased monthly payments or added payments at the back end of the mortgage. If a borrower was in default already, what’s the chance the borrower can make a higher monthly payment?

Brad Miller, US Congressman for the Thirteenth District of North Carolina advances a possible motivation for the apparently illogical behavior of US banks.
posted by orthogonality on Feb 5, 2009 - 75 comments

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank gave a bank, whose capital ratio equaled only 1.88% of assets at the bank, versus a desired level of about 6%, TARP money after heavy lobbying. Frank inserted into the bill a provision to give special consideration to banks that had less than $1 billion of assets, had been well-capitalized as of June 30, served low- and moderate-income areas, and had taken a capital hit in the federal seizure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (WSJ link) [more inside]
posted by SeizeTheDay on Jan 22, 2009 - 92 comments

While the Wall Street financial crisis gripped the world Icelanders woke up one day to find that the Icelandic state had forcibly taken over the country's 3rd biggest bank, Glitnir. The worry is now that one of the two larger banks could also fail and the state wouldn't have the resources to do anything as the two remaining of the big 3 have assets totaling 10 times the GDP of Iceland. While the Central Bank claims it was the only option in a bad situation, prior bad blood between one of the Central Bank's directors, a former Prime Minister, and the main owner of Glitnir have some wondering if Icelanders have just been witness to "the biggest bank robbery in Icelandic history." [Warning: The story you are about to read may make you reconsider the verisimilitude of soap operas]
posted by Kattullus on Oct 3, 2008 - 25 comments

LOLFed. Doan cry, emo banker! If you hate the latest financial crisis news, but love image macros, then this is the site for you. It's like I Can Has Cheezburger meets the Wall Street Journal.
posted by Asparagirl on Sep 22, 2008 - 61 comments

According to the latest biweekly numbers released last Thursday by the Federal Reserve, for the two weeks that ended January 16th American banks had negative $1.3 billion in non-borrowed reserves. This is, historically, extremely unusual; just two months ago they had $30 billion (positive, of course) in non-borrowed reserves. The only reason some banks haven't been shut due to insufficient -- negative! -- reserve requirements is that the Federal Reserve is currently loaning them enough money through the brand new TAF (Term Auction Facility) program (also running in Canada and Europe) to make up their shortfalls. Today's TAF press release says that 52 American banks or institutions are currently receiving loans totaling ~$40 billion -- but the Fed refuses to name who they are. [more inside]
posted by Asparagirl on Jan 29, 2008 - 162 comments

HorribleEconomicNewsFilter: Rogue trader costs his bank 7 billion dollar. Take that, Nick Leeson!
posted by Skeptic on Jan 24, 2008 - 55 comments

50 fun facts about banks.
posted by jbickers on Jan 16, 2008 - 40 comments

A miniature of Scrooge McDuck's money bin. (in the words of the model maker) This is a set of images documenting a model of the world's richest duck's money bin, built by me, using blueprints created by the great Don Rosa and Dan Shane.And remember Carl Barks - the mind behind the idea of a man storing all his money in a giant concrete bin.
posted by JBennett on Oct 25, 2007 - 30 comments

Dear Friend, I am a Swiss Banker currently in possession of over $ 1 Billion in funds stashed away by the late dictator Mobutu Sese Seko of the Congo. Our Swiss Confederation President Micheline Calmy-Rey said her government is holding just $6.6m frozen in accounts. "We discussed the question of Mobutu's funds and my government is prepared to restore the money to the DR Congo as soon as possible," Ms Rey told reporters in the DR Congo capital, Kinshasa, after talks with Mr Kabila. But we can help you get the rest of the 92.4 million dollars if you will just send us your bank account number and call to confirm your ID and pin number.
posted by infini on Jul 17, 2007 - 65 comments

Blue Moon Fiber Arts, an independent Oregon-based online yarn store, has a sock yarn club that knitters can join and receive a bimonthly shipment of sock yarn and other goodies. They have run it before with great success, and it has grown in popularity to the point that they have a waiting list to get in. When they started it up again for the new year, their bank decided they were running some sort of scam because that many people couldn't possibly be interested in sock yarn. Wrong. You don't mess with knitters. This is a group that has raised over $275,000 in the past year for Doctors Without Borders just because a popular knitblogger asked them to. Not surprisingly, the knitbloggers are pissed. There's already a knitalong underway in protest.
posted by booksherpa on Jan 11, 2007 - 22 comments

Turn It On Again Tour announced - Banks, Collins and Rutherford tour again! Died and gone to heaven, I have! Never thought this would happen again in my lifetime. Phil, Tony and Mike haven't toured since pre-internet days.... Gosh, this is probably the very first announced (real) Genesis tour to ever hit the web...
posted by notmtwain on Nov 8, 2006 - 42 comments

Bank penalty charges are unenforceable at law and you can get them back.
posted by sgt.serenity on Jun 17, 2006 - 29 comments

If Banks were Bands, which would they be? A Bloomberg columnist writes about the 'personalities' of the world's big investment banks, and compares them to well-known bands. Some amusing, and insightful, descriptions
posted by darsh on May 17, 2006 - 58 comments

Former GOP senior strategist Kevin Phillips wrote the political Bible of the New Right, The Emerging Republican Majority. He coined the term "Sun Belt." He voted for Reagan twice and still considers himself a staunch Republican. But now Phillips, the author of a new book called American Theocracy, is warning that the party of George Bush and Karl Rove ("W brand Republicans," in the phrase of GOP pollster Jan van Lohuizen) has become "God's own party" -- the champion of a convergence of "petroleum-defined national security; a crusading, simplistic Christianity; and a reckless credit-feeding financial complex." Phillips also cautions that the W-brand party's "sense of how to win elections comes out of a CIA manual, not out of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution." [Phillips was also discussed here.]
posted by digaman on Apr 2, 2006 - 27 comments

"Don't equate happiness with money"... "Exercise Regularly"... "Have Sex"...
Advice from a German investment bank on how to enjoy life. Taking CitiBank's cynical "Live Richly" ad campaign a step farther?
obilgatory joke "I remember when the bank only gave away free toasters..."
In other news, A bank in India is targeting "sex workers" as new customers,
Insert Sperm Bank Joke Here. heh heh heh... he said "Insert Sperm"...
posted by wendell on Jun 19, 2004 - 7 comments

Has PayPal's acceptable use policy become much broader recently? I just received notice of changes to PayPal's acceptable use policy. I was surprised at the number of things that they have restrictions on. One in particular seemed like the kiss of death: No porn for you unless it's from eBay's Mature section. Won't somebody think of the cam girls? With many banks now offering some sort of internet check-writing facility is PayPal really even a valid business model anymore outside of eBay?
posted by substrate on Mar 14, 2003 - 10 comments

Swiss Holocaust Cash Revealed To Be Myth. "The tribunal said that it had processed about 10,000 claims in response to the list of dormant account names published by the Swiss Bankers’ Association five years ago. Only 200 accounts — containing £6.9 million — could be traced to Holocaust victims."
posted by tpoh.org on Oct 14, 2001 - 2 comments

Argentine Peso Crashing, Provinces Pay in 'Patacon'
The new scrip will be accepted, officials hope, until the recent US bailout makes it possible to print pesos. The IMF posted 8B dollars last week, at which time 'patacon' was being used in ATMs (Surprise!) I like the above articles noting that it "fits into a wallet like money" --- was there ever a case of design problems in emergency paper currency?
posted by rschram on Aug 27, 2001 - 6 comments

To stop the credit bureaus from releasing your personal info without your knowledge, call 888-567-8688. To stop your bank, brokerage firm, credit union, etc., from doing the same, you'll need to send a letter. More info in comments.
posted by JParker on Aug 22, 2001 - 16 comments

A guy paid $5000 to a bank for a list of 4 million credit card numbers, complete with name/address of the owners. He proceeded to start making false charges to those cards totalling some $37 million. He's going to jail. My question is, what the hell was the bank thinking? Why are they selling something like that? Didn't they recognize the potential for abuse? What possible legitimate use could such a list have?
posted by Steven Den Beste on Jan 23, 2001 - 8 comments