Working Life

Yesterday, I raised my concerns about the Senate’s proposal to hand more power to the Federal Reserve Board and give the Fed the role of protecting consumers. Honestly, I thought it was a cruel joke and a perfect example of the Washington insiders protecting the interests of Wall Street. Barney Frank agrees.   Here is […]

Read the full story

   It’s beginning: House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.) told lawmakers the plan would no longer require banks to offer customers "plain vanilla" versions of products such as mortgages and credit cards, one of the more populist components of the White House’s proposal that had become a lightening rod of criticism from […]

Read the full story

   A few weeks ago, I noted that the powers-that-be inside Washington had the knives out for the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency. It’s pretty clear why: this is an agency that, if it works, would shatter the cozy little closed relationship between Wall Street and the regulators (e.g., the Federal Reserve Board) who were […]

Read the full story

   No institution ever gives up power willingly. It has to be taken from it by force–not necessarily armed force, but certainly political force. To wit, the battle over the power of the Federal Reserve Board. Two different takes floated around the business/mainstream media today–both of which miss the point, which I’ll get to down […]

Read the full story

  I suspect we are going to be distracted by an emerging debate between Congressional Democrats and The White House on how to handle the CEO pay caps written into the economic stimulus bill. This is a distraction because, in all honesty, the pay caps aren’t real.   Today, there is this news in The […]

Read the full story