Sam Knight - page 62

While the public is used to hearing about Wall Street lobbyists’ siege on financial regulators, a government watchdog has warned the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation that its lax operational security has for years left it vulnerable to attacks by other malicious actors—especially those from within. Deficiencies in the federal retail deposit backer’s computer systems have long put sensitive, market-moving information at risk, the Government Accountability Office warned in a report published Thursday. Particularly vulnerable, it said, is information about collapsed and moribund banks. The corporation isn’t… Keep Reading

Lawmakers could soon find themselves increasingly presented with a flimsily constructed paradox in lobbyists’ unrelenting effort to erode financial reforms. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, in an annual letter published late Wednesday, said Dodd-Frank regulations make banks “less able to act positively in the next crisis,” and praised the cash injection big banks offered the market through fire-sale acquisitions, as the financial sector was ravaged late last decade by the mortgage crisis it created. “In the last crisis, banks underwrote (for other banks) $110 billion of stock… Keep Reading

Republican-backed tax cuts that would primarily benefit the children of dead millionaires would cost the country almost $30 billion every year, the Congressional Budget Office said on Wednesday. The so-called Death Tax Repeal Act, which passed out of the House Ways and Means committee last month, would “reduce revenues, thus increasing federal deficits, by about $269 billion over the 2015-2025 period,” the CBO said. The bill–proposed by Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), the chair of the Joint Economic Committee–has 135 cosponsors to date; the majority of… Keep Reading

Environmentalists concerned by zealous pushes to exploit what lies beneath the melting Arctic ice may have found themselves on Tuesday with an unlikely comrade in arms. Adm. Bill Gortney, the chief of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), cast doubt on the wisdom of northern development, citing continued “very, very harsh” conditions, environmental instability itself, and difficulties shipping. “It’s actually more dangerous today than when we had a stable shelf,” he said. While Gortney said that “the reality is there’s gonna be more activity up… Keep Reading

Rand Paul’s entrance into the 2016 presidential race looks set to cause a schism among Republicans, as their presidential primary looks increasingly like it will be a lightning rod for Wall Street-backed criticism of “Audit the Fed” legislation. As Paul prepared to officially launch his bid, The Financial Times reported on Tuesday morning that many Republican party donors would be more openly hostile to the broad rightwing support of the bill if they didn’t need conservatives on so many other issues “Banks fear that openly… Keep Reading