By James Kwak

“Fed Tells Big Banks to Shrink or Else,” the Wall Street Journal proclaimed in the headline of its lead story today.* If only.

What the Federal Reserve actually did is impose new, additional capital requirements for the largest banks. JPMorgan Chase, for example, will have to hold 4.5 percentage points more capital than it would have had to otherwise. This is clearly a good thing, since it means that the banks that could do the most damage to the financial system will be a little bit safer. But it is neither a complete solution, nor is it the draconian constraint that the banks and the Journal make it out to be.

For starters, the rule will have no effect on seven of the eight banks in question (JPMorgan is the exception), since they already have enough capital to meet the new requirements. That alone should let you…

I met Colossus when I worked as a personal injury paralegal. I became even better acquainted with this computer program after I set up the Personal Injury Protection (PIP) department at the law firm where I worked. Within a short period of time, I had figured out which keywords and CPT codes were accepted and which were rejected. However this did not guarantee that the claim would be paid. It was my job to wrangle with the insurance adjuster in the event that Colossus rejected a valid claim, which was often. I once drafted a complaint for 24 cents because the insurance adjuster was rude. Yep, 24 cents. The attorney who signed the complaint laughed but I was able to get $2,100 in attorney’s fees plus the 24 cents and our court costs from the insurance company before any court appearances.

Allstate always had a reputation of not settling claims…

DeMarco shares his thoughts in an opinion piece in theWall Street Journal entitled “Put Fannie and Freddie Out of Taxpayers’ Misery.”

Here’s DeMarco, in his own words:

Seven years later, fundamental problems with the system—especially the roles of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—remain unreformed. If today’s presidential candidates want to engage in a policy debate that affects the lives of nearly all Americans, this is it.

The good news is that broad consensus exists on two core changes that could be implemented now:

First, taxpayers shouldn’t be left holding the bag for mortgage defaults. Instead, private capital needs to be brought back into this system. In 2013 the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) began the process of shifting mortgage credit risk from taxpayers to private markets. The agency directed Fannie and Freddie to sell some portion of the mortgage credit risk they assume when they issue mortgage-backed securities.

These…

Federal investigators have indicted several Atlanta bank employees in a tax refund fraud scheme in which they filed more than 2,000 fraudulent tax returns in an effort to pocket more than $2 million in fraudulent tax refunds.

What’s more, the feds say, the fraudulent tax returns were filed using personally identifying information belonging primarily to elderly retirees and children aged 10 and younger.

Read on.

• Investment banks have been hit by Libor and foreign exchange scandals
• Traders’ chats show culture of joking about ripping off clients
• Now most major banks have banned mobiles from the trading floor and increased surveillance of emails and instant messages
• Some bankers have left the industry saying ‘this job used to be fun’ 

City bankers have been banned from using their phones at work, swearing in emails and talking to their rivals as part of a wide-ranging crackdown on their behaviour in the wake of recent scandals sweeping the industry, it has emerged.

Institutions desperate to clean up their act after being fined millions for Libor fraud and currency rigging have imposed tough new rules on employees’ behaviour in the office, MailOnline can reveal.

Investment banks have had their reputations damaged by evidence that traders were conniving to make profits by rigging key benchmarks – often losing their clients money…

Most board members in June received restricted stock worth approximately $36,000, meaning that even the lowest-paid board member will now make nearly $280,000 a year.

A bank spokesman pointed out that most of its board members haven’t received a raise since 2006 and that their responsibilities have increased greatly since then. Bank of Americaboard members earn more than the median pay for other companies in the S&P 500, but their base pay was less than that of directors at some other big banks.

Read on.

Below is an excerpt from a very informative article written by Jeff Nielson on Sprott Money. This is a must read for anyone following my site. Back in 2005-2006, I told friends and family, actually anyone who would listen to me, that housing prices were being artificially inflated and this would end badly. As we all know, the housing market crashed in 2008. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of persons lost their homes through foreclosure. This has been termed as the biggest land grab in history.

In the past couple of years, I have seen the same trend that was happening in 2005-2006. Once again, housing prices are skyrocketing. Because we have not fully recovered globally from the Great Recession, the results this time will be far more catastrophic.

We already saw that having only one buyer in the market meant that real estate prices would go as…

ASTON, Ct. — A Connecticut couple has disappeared days after losing their latest appeal in a multimillion-dollar foreclosure case, a disappearance that a local police chief said appears increasingly suspicious though the pair’s family said it may be unrelated to their financial woes.

Jeffrey and Jeanette Navin of Easton, Connecticut, were last seen on Tuesday, August 4, at the refuse company they own in Westport, according to Easton Police Chief Tim Shaw.

In late July, Jeffrey Navin was denied his latest appeal in an ongoing eight-year battle over a mortgage on the family’s second home in central Connecticut, according to court documents.

Read on.