Sunday’s Presidential Democratic Debate on the issue of Wall Street was pretty intense by the three candidates.

CNN:

To do it, Clinton had to go back more than 15 years, and shine a light on a decision that her husband, by his own admission, would come to regret.

“You’re the only one on this stage that voted to deregulate the financial market in 2000,” Clinton said, making reference to his support for former President Bill Clinton’s Commodity Futures Modernization Act.

The law effectively gave bankers, or “sophisticated traders,” free rein from pre-existing oversight mechanisms when they wanted to make deals on the sidelines of the major stock exchanges, in “over-the-counter” trading.

Clinton himself would later cop to having made a serious mistake in signing…

Wall Street and Hollywood have at last one thing in common: a lack prominent roles for women.

And when the two industries get together, like in “Wall Street,” “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “The Big Short,” women are more likely to be naked in a bubble bath or portrayed as the weepy wife than as an investment banker putting together a deal.

Until now.

“Equity,” — the first project of Hollywood insiders Alysia Reiner and Sarah Megan Thomas — is set to debut at the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 26.

It is the first female-driven Wall Street film, the two actors, who last year formed Broad Street Pictures, claim.

The film stars Anna Gunn from “Breaking Bad” as Naomi Bishop, a 40s-ish investment banker who, while fighting to get a promotion leads a controversial tech IPO.

It’s being billed as the first post-financial crisis Wall Street film —…

It is up to the voters to decide which Presidential candidate has a better plan to go over Wall Street execs and end the commercial banks from engaging in the investment business and not simply have the same repeated bank offenders to continue to pay a fine and sign a non-prosecution agreement in order to avoid jail time.

USUncut:

According to Hillary Clinton, if you were a victim of the foreclosure crisis, it was probably your fault.

The only problem with that argument is that it’s not even close to factually correct.

Clinton in 2007: Homeowners “should have known they were getting in over their heads”

When Clinton ran for president during her second term as New York’s U.S. Senator, she gave a tepid speech at the NASDAQ headquarters on December 5, 2007 — before the financial crisis reached a boiling point — about reforming Wall Street’s housing loan practices, largely…

Gawker:

Newly released data for 2015 shows that this message is filtering down to you, the average idiot (and the average idiot pension funds and whatnot that have all your retirement money). From the Wall Street Journal: “Clients yanked $207.3 billion in 2015 from U.S.-based mutual funds that hand pick their positions while pouring $413.8 billion into funds that mimic broad indexes for a fraction of the cost, according to new data from research firm MorningstarInc… The movement of money in 2015 was the first net outflow from traditional money managers since the 2008 financial crisis and the largest-ever from actively managed U.S. stock funds.”

If the average actively managed mutual fund charges something like 1.5% a year in fees, that means that last year this industry lost more than $3 billion of our money that would have gone into their pockets, and then into prime Manhattan…

Truthout:

The US accounted for the largest shadow-banking sector, with $14.2 trillion in 2014.

The Increasing Size of Shadow Banking in the US

Investment banks, structured investment vehicles, hedge funds, non-bank financial institutions, money market funds, mutual funds and exchange-traded funds are all a part of the shadow banking system and are not required to maintain any reserves or emergency capital. “No regulations” in a “regulated environment” could be the biggest worry of the shadow banking system. Often beyond the control of regulators and monetary policy, shadow-banking activities can resort to risky lending. According to the New York Fed, shadow banks have “increased the fragility of the entire financial system.” While the total of non-bank financial intermediaries decreased immediately after the 2008 financial crisis, the number of shadow banks have picked up in recent years.

The vulnerabilities of the traditional banking system to the unregulated risks undertaken by the…

As Ted Cruz tells it, the story of how he financed his upstart campaign for the United States Senate four years ago is an endearing example of loyalty and shared sacrifice between a married couple.

“Sweetheart, I’d like us to liquidate our entire net worth, liquid net worth, and put it into the campaign,” he says he told his wife, Heidi, who readily agreed.

But the couple’s decision to pump more than $1 million into Mr. Cruz’s successful Tea Party-darling Senate bid in Texas was made easier by a large loan from Goldman Sachs, where Mrs. Cruz works. That loan was not disclosed in campaign finance reports.

Those reports show that in the critical weeks before the May 2012 Republican primary, Mr. Cruz — currently a leading contender for his party’s presidential nomination — put “personal funds” totaling $960,000 into his Senate campaign. Two months later, shortly before…

An Illinois district court judge affirmed a $2 million verdict against a Texas-based mortgage servicer for its collection activities against an elderly homeowner.

Alena W. Hammer filed suit in 2013 after Residential Credit Solutions filed two wrongful foreclosures, although Hammer had previously completed a loan modification with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

In April 2015, a federal jury found in Hammer’s favor on all claims of breach of contract, violations of Illinois Consumer Fraud Act and the real Estate Settlement Procedures Act.

Read on.