Tag Archives | Finance

The Shady Past of the Vatican Bank

By on July 9, 2012 in News 7

As scandal surrounding the Vatican Bank grows and grows, Der Spiegel looks back at the its recent history of extreme sketchiness:

Whereas Benedict XVI and his predecessors have preached humility and ethical financial dealings from the window overlooking St. Peter’s Square, his confidants working directly beneath the papal windows have continued to pursue shady financial transactions.

The Vatican has yet to divulge the business practices its bank has been using for decades. “There is fear that, owing to the transparency necessary today, one will find something in the past that one doesn’t want to,” says Marco Politi, a Rome-based Vatican expert.

Such things could include a complex system of ghost accounts and shell companies like the bank had when Archbishop Paul Casimir Marcinkus was its head in the 1980s. At the time, the bank did business involving foreign currency and weapons with the Milanese banker Robert Calvi and the mafia financier Michele Sidona — and helped launder illegal proceeds the mafia earned from drug-trafficking as well as bribes paid to Christian-conservative Italian politicians.

… Read the rest

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Barclays CEO Resigns Under a Cloud of Criminal Allegations

By on July 3, 2012 in News 7

World Economic Forum (CC)

Uh-oh.  In case you haven’t been paying attention, there’s a rolling sh*tstorm breaking out across the pond related to the admitted gaming of LIBOR by big investment banks like Barclays.  You know LIBOR, right?  The rate referenced in practically every major financial contract since 1985.

I wonder how much of that $450 million will go to folks who got the short end of the stick on contracts paid out under a fradulently low LIBOR rate.

From Mark Scott at the NY Times:

LONDON – Barclays is quickly trying to stem the fallout from a rate-manipulation scandal, as its chief executive Robert E. Diamond Jr. [at right] abruptly resigned on Tuesday.

Less than a week ago, the big bank agreed to pay $450 million to settle accusations that it had tried to influence key interest rates for its own benefit, sparking a political firestorm in Britain.

Now, the scandal has claimed three casualties, including Mr.

… Read the rest

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Student Loans On The Rise — For Kindergarten

By on April 11, 2012 in News 5

play and playthingsWell, I suppose this makes sense in that school is supposed to prepare people for the rest of their lives. SmartMoney on a new trend:

It used to be that families first signed up for education loans when their child enrolled in college, but a growing number of parents are seeking tuition assistance as soon as kindergarten. Though data is scarce, private school experts and the small number of lenders who provide loans for kindergarten through 12th grade say pre-college loans are becoming more popular.

The loans can also be expensive. The interest rates — which can be fixed or variable — range from around 4% to roughly 20%. (Lower rates are given to parents with higher credit scores.)

… Read the rest

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Bank of America To Charge Customers Fees Unless They Buy More Products, Have Enough Money

By on March 3, 2012 in News 18

Bank Of OpportunityReports the Week via Yahoo News:

The banking giant is attracting criticism once again, with a plan to make checking accounts a whole lot more expensive Bank of America is working on “sweeping changes” that would levy new fees on customers with checking accounts, The Wall Street Journal reports. Proposed fees, ranging from $6 to $25 a month, could only be waived if customers meet certain requirements that favor the bank — by keeping a minimum balance, taking out a mortgage, or switching to online banking. The report comes months after Bank of America withdrew a proposed $5 monthly fee for using debit cards, after suffering a backlash from customers and lawmakers alike. Unsurprisingly, the new fee plan is already being slammed: Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) calls it “a challenge that cannot go unanswered.” Is the bank’s scheme outrageous?

Of course. Banks are extorting customers: It’s bad enough that BofA tried to instate the $5 fee for debit card users, says Hamilton Nolan at Gawker.

… Read the rest

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Is One Out Of Ten Wall Street Workers A Psychopath?

By on March 2, 2012 in News 30

MCDAMPS EC020With clinical psychopaths dramatically overrepresented in finance, one can only assume that mentally healthy workers must learn to imitate psychopathic behavior to remain employed. Via the Huffington Post:

One out of every 10 Wall Street employees is likely a clinical psychopath, writes the trade publication CFA Magazine. In the general population the rate is closer to one out of every 100.

Journalist Sherree DeCovny pulls together research from several psychologists for her story, which helpfully suggests that financial firms carefully screen out extreme psychopaths in hiring.

A clinical psychopath is bright and charming, writes DeCovny. He lies easily, and may have trouble feeling empathy for other people. He’s more willing to take dangerous risks…the outcomes matter less than the gambles themselves — and the chemical rush of serotonin and endorphins that accompanies them.

This is hardly the first time that mental illness has been equated with a certain capacity for professional success — especially in the financial sector, where some stock traders have actually scored higher than diagnosed psychopaths on tests that measure competitiveness and attraction to risk.

… Read the rest

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The Bank Bailout Was Actually $8 Trillion

By on November 28, 2011 in News 49

largeAh, free-market capitalism — the economic system that works best, provided that one infuses $8 trillion to stave off total collapse. The Atlantic Wire writes:

Remember the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program with which the federal government came to the rescue of faltering banks in 2008? Well, according to a Bloomberg report, that was just a fraction of the financial help the Federal Reserve Bank wound up doling out to troubled lenders. The real total was reportedly closer to $8 trillion, after you add up benefits outside TARP, including emergency loans given at below-market rates:

The amount of money the central bank parceled out was surprising even to Gary H. Stern, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis from 1985 to 2009, who says he “wasn’t aware of the magnitude.” It dwarfed the Treasury Department’s better-known $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. Add up guarantees and lending limits, and the Fed had committed $7.77 trillion as of March 2009 to rescuing the financial system, more than half the value of everything produced in the U.S.

… Read the rest

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Five More Countries For Goldman Sachs To Take Over

By on November 23, 2011 in News 3

octoNow that Goldman Sachs has achieved coups d’etats in Greece and Italy, DJ Pangburn at Death and Taxes lays out five additional countries ripe for bankdom to install leaders:

We present five other countries where Goldman Sachs could install bankers as heads of state.

Where to begin, though? Originally, I considered Ireland to be a prime candidate for some Goldman Sachs coup d’etat action, but it seems that Ireland already got the old Goldman Sachs in/out in the form of Peter Sutherland, a non-executive director of Goldman Sachs, as well as a non-executive at BP. Here are five countries that could use a little Goldman Sachs in/out.

Spain: With concerns in Italy lessening amidst the installation of ex-Goldman man Mario Monti as PM, bankers and investors in the eurozone and abroad are looking to Spain, which the BBC is calling the “weaker link in the eurozone chain.”

This is obviously the first country that requires a Goldman Sachs premiership.

… Read the rest

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Greece’s Choice, And Ours: Rule By Democracy or Finance?

By on November 7, 2011 in News 9

GreeceBank575A number of nations, including Greece and the United States, are in the process of deciding between being governed by democracy or by finance, Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Labor Robert Reich writes:

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou decided in favor of democracy yesterday when he announced a national referendum on the draconian budget cuts Europe and the IMF are demanding from Greece in return for bailing it out.

(Or, more accurately, the cuts Europe and the IMF are demanding for bailing out big European banks that have lent Greece lots of money and stand to lose big if Greece defaults on those loans—not to mention Wall Street banks that will also suffer because of their intertwined financial connections with European banks.)

If Greek voters accept the bailout terms, unemployment will rise even further in Greece, public services will be cut more than they have already, the Greek economy will contract, and the standard of living of most Greeks will deteriorate further.

… Read the rest

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