If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Blog
Obviously Barack Obama was right in criticizing Mitt Romney's stewardship of Bain Capital. How else to evaluate the business experience that Romney has made a central tenet of his campaign?
Globally, a burgeoning movement for local, cooperatively owned and community-oriented banks is blazing the trail toward a new, sustainable form of banking.
In the wake of Wall Street recklessness that caused economic collapse, Congress gave shareholders and citizens Dodd-Frank to help them constrain self-dealing corporate executives. The 99% Coalition and shareholders are working with those tools even as Republicans vow to take them away.
Jamie Dimon was hailed as the wizard of Wall Street. Until the revelation of JPMorgan Chase's disastrous derivatives bet, he was the man who supposedly could do no wrong. But, alas, even wizards are not all powerful, not in Oz and not when trading in financial derivatives.
The JPMorgan Chase scandal -- and yes, it is a scandal -- shows us why we need to break up the big banks as quickly as possible.
What is so abundantly clear is that the lack of transparency in derivatives trading, and the sheer complexity that is a by-product of that lack of transparency, really can make them "financial weapons of mass destruction."
As the euro zone crisis intensifies and global markets reflect investor concerns, we ask ourselves, is a Greek exit from the euro on its way? Preparations have already begun to protect shareholder interest.
The JPMorgan episode may be the warning that Congress needs to return to its role of protecting the public rather than coddling the banks. But it also raises a question: How many times does a lesson have to be taught before it is learned?
The Temkin Group, a business that consults on and researches customer experiences, has done a new survey of 10,000 consumers to determine which businesses customers are most and least likely to forgive.
If small business owners want to see more credit available, they need to keep their eye on Washington as much as their local lending institutions. And yes, we need the help.
When individuals, religious institutions and local and state governments decide to move their money, it puts direct pressure on banks and on the federal government to change their policies. Cities and states have incredible leverage if they chose to use it.
It's nothing new for banks to offer gifts to new customers -- a free toaster is the age-old example. However, a bank in Florida has come up with something a little sexier: a new Mercedes in exchange for opening a 5-year CD.
We not only need to rein the banks in but we've got to delegate the responsibility for measuring household wealth -- and hopefully come up with ways to boost it -- to an agency that's more in touch with "the 99%."
There's got to be bigger scandals out there that cost bank customers real money, and actually lead to real losses that could put a company's survival in jeopardy. The JP Morgan trading loss is neither and not by a long shot.
President Obama and others have used the recent $2 billion loss by JPMorgan Chase as a call for more regulation. What the president and his allies miss is that recent events at JPMorgan illustrate how the system should -- and does -- work.
