Entries tagged "Henry Paulson"

A Colossal Failure: Laying blame for Lehman's fall

Former Lehman distressed debt trader Lawrence McDonald's book is more like two separate memoirs about his life before Lehman, and a second about the four years leading up to the bank's collapse.

A few simple lessons of the fall of Lehman

'A Collosal Failure in Common Sense' is the first in a series of books about the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

Henry Paulson in the hot seat

The former Treasury secretary was in the hot seat as lawmakers peppered him with pointed questions about his role in convincing Bank of America's Ken Lewis to buy embattled Merrill Lynch.

The Times revives competitiveness debate

There are two broad realities that will erode the efficacy of any financial regulatory reform over time, no matter how well designed.

MAC clause was not an option for Lewis

Lewis had two ways out of the deal, at least in theory. However, theory and reality differ in practice as the courts would have likely deferred to the government's wishes.

Testing the thin line of Federal Reserve autonomy

FT: Congress has served the Fed with a subpoena over BofA's Lewis' claim he was pressured by Bernanke and Paulson to complete the Merrill Lynch acquisition. The first reaction: Roll your eyes until you get dizzy.

Paulson offers up a regulatory reform plan

Henry Paulson writes an op-ed on regulatory reform; how fascinating, how revealing, that our former Treasury secretary opts for a pink foreign newspaper to offer up his views.

Saving Citi and BofA while ending the crisis

As Citigroup Inc. desperately tries to right its ship, Bank of America Corp. reportedly has returned to the Treasury with its hat in hand asking for more money after blowing its first handout on a bad bet, Merrill Lynch & Co. The sorry state of two leading U.S. banks raises into question how effective the government's efforts to fix the sickly banking industry has been. The blogosphere -- much like the public it reflects -- is alight with populist outrage, speculation and even some solutions. ...

Cap markets committee weighs in on regulatory reform

Quietly Wednesday, as the gears of federal succession began to shift, the Committee for Capital Markets Regulation released a summary paper of its recommendations for financial regulatory reform. Devotees of regulation will recognize the private-sector group as a gang of worthies assembled by Treasury's Henry Paulson in 2006 "to study how to improve the competitiveness of U.S. capital markets." Yes, those were the salad days when the biggest issue was competition with London for IPOs. Now the group, co-chaired by former Goldman, Sachs & Co. president John Thornton and Columbia Business School Dean (and former Bush Council on Economics advisor...

Congress looks to cut the strings on bankers' golden parachutes

Banks are quickly finding out that all that nice taxpayer money the U.S. Treasury Department has been handing out via TARP comes with some strings attached. Lawmakers and even a typically "hands-off" White House are letting bankers know that they have definite ideas about how these equity infusions should and should not be used. Hint: Cushy compensation is not one of them....

Treasury's 25 garbage men

So far 25 banks have won the support of the Treasury Department, which has deployed almost $160 billion in direct capital injections, usually in the form of preferred share purchases. It's widely speculated that these banks are not going to simply use the money to open the spigots of lending, but instead to do acquisitions. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.'s CEO Jamie Dimon recently made it clear during an earnings call that he might use some of Treasury's $25 billion for acquisitions. Even smaller banks receiving funding such as City National Bank of Beverly Hills, Calif., may seek acquisitions...

Why the next treasury chief needs some charisma

With only two weeks before the presidential election, chatter about who will succeed Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is again heating up, particularly because of the sense that whoever wins will select one quickly. Given national polls showing Sen. Barack Obama winning the election, and more importantly state-by-state poll aggregation sites like 270towin.com showing Obama exceeding the necessary 270 Electoral College votes, most of the chatter is focusing on who is likely to be on his list. However, what once was a short list has become a much longer list as evidenced by a poll on blog Clusterstock. While the...

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