Bailout and Financial Crisis News

By Amy Stevens After Planet Money burst upon the scene and proceeded to win nearly every major award in broadcasting, NPR figured this wildly successful team of brilliant reporters could use some…. supervision. Really? But I wasn’t one to argue. Here was an opportunity to work at one of America’s premier news organizations, with some of the [...]

The SEC’s general punishment structure looks at the outcome of a company engaging in fraud and, if the company benefited from it, charging a penalty. But the SEC is looking to rework the guidelines created in 2006 that focus on two factors: 1) whether the company benefit ted from the fraud and 2) whether a penalty [...]

The New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt takes a close look at the Zachary Kouwe plagiarism case in today’s Times. The DealBook reporter resigned in mid-February after Wall Street Journal editor Robert Thompson sent a letter to Times editors noting “lifted” passages and language from WSJ material in his work. Two researchers turned up [...]

The Wall Street Journal brings us up to speed on the efforts of Gary Gensler and the CFTC to drastically limit the leverage available to retail currency speculators: The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has proposed rules that would reduce the amount of borrowed funds that retail investors can use when investing in the U.S. foreign-exchange market [...]

I am going to do something I never do: Recommend a book I have yet to read. Harry Markopolos’ No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller. I met Harry several times — a quiet, studious guy. Very serious. The sort of guy you want doing your taxes. That he discovered the Madoff fraud isn’t very [...]

Another month of weakly improving auto sales. Data source: Wardsauto.com February marked the third month in a row that U.S. light vehicle sales exceeded their levels from the year before. But a year ago things were awful, and the improvements have yet to gain much steam. On a seasonally adjusted basis, we’re not making any [...]

Joanna Chung, the Financial Times’ U.S. correspondent covering financial regulation and enforcement, has shifted to The Wall Street Journal as Bureau Chief of the Law Group. She will cover law and lead the paper’s legal coverage including on WSJ.com's law blog. Here’s the memo circulated to staffers from Robert Thompson, editor in chief of the Wall [...]

By itself, Prudential's acquisition of AIA Group from AIG represents a huge fraction of the M&A activity in the last year. A little background: Britain’s Prudential bought AIG’s Asia operations for $35.5 billion in cash and shares. According to the Wall Street Journal, the deal will make Prudential the leading insurer in Southeast Asia and AIG [...]

From Capital Gains And Games: Senate Banking chairman Chris Dodd is circulating his new compromise plan for a consumer financial regulator.  The New York Times and Wall Street Journal both summarized the proposal last night, but here is a copy of Dodd’s still-rough outline. As compromises go, it could be worse.   It drops the idea of a [...]

NEW YORK (AP) — The board of American International Group Inc. has approved the sale of its Asian life insurance arm to British life insurer Prudential PLC, according to media reports Sunday. The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, reported that the deal could be announced as early as Monday. Prudential would [...]

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