Arthur Levitt

Derivatives like credit default swaps turned a mere bubble in the US housing market into a global financial catastrophe... 

How the SEC handed large banks a monopoly on short-term finance in 1998 by amending Rule 2a-7 and made the 2008 financial crisis inevitable

Seven years of bailing out the big banks that control the Federal Reserve and US Treasury at the expense of the US economy has threatened the US dollar to the extent that the dollar must be protected at all cost, including US regulatory tolerance of illegal activity to suppress gold and silver prices.

"These record profits that companies are reporting are not all they're cracked up to be."

The primary job of modern American regulators is to protect entrenched status quo interests. Protecting the public doesn’t even factor into the equation.

• Fed set to end one crisis chapter even as global risks rise (Reuters)... you mean, for the third time?
• Insider-Trading Probe Focuses on Medicare Agency (WSJ)
• He's sorry: Rajoy Apologizes as New Wave of Graft Allegations Hits Spain (BBG)
• China could 'punish' Hong Kong over protests, says ex-HK central bank chief (Reuters)
• Dubai Insists the Boom is Not a Bubble This Time Around (BBG)
• Bank-Data Sharing Accord Expands Push to Find Tax Cheats (BBG)
• Deutsche Bank Sinks to Third-Quarter Loss on Legal Costs (BBG)
• Kim Jong Un Executes 10 Officials for Watching Soap Operas (BBG)
• French drugmaker Sanofi sacks CEO Viehbacher (Reuters)

The stories make you want to take all of your money out of the stock market and put it in your mattress!

Just like the hit series "House Of Cards," Wall Street earnings season has become rife with manipulation, deceit and obfuscation that could rival the dark corners of Washington, D.C. From time to time we do an analysis of the previous quarters earnings for the S&P 500 in order to reveal the "quality" of earnings rather than the "quantity" as focused on by Wall Street. One of the most interesting data points continues to the be the extremely low level of "top line" revenue growth as compared to an explosion of the bottom line earnings per share. This is something that we have dubbed "accounting magic" and is represented by the following chart which shows that since 2009 total revenue growth has grown by just 31% while profits have skyrocketed by 253%.

Simply ending the corporate lives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as the Johnson-Crapo proposal envisions is not sufficient

When Arthur Levitt's SEC adopted Rule 2a-7 in 1998, it handed the TBTF banks and GSEs a mortgage monopoly on a silver platter.  

The short but profitable tale of how 483,000 private individual have "top secret" access to the nation's most non-public information begins in 2001. "After 9/11, intelligence budgets were increased, new people needed to be hired, it was a lot easier to go to the private sector and get people off the shelf," and sure enough firms like Booz Allen Hamilton - still two-thirds owned by the deeply-tied-to-international-governments investment firm The Carlyle Group - took full advantage of Congress' desire to shrink federal agencies and their budgets by enabling outside consultants (already primed with their $4,000 cost 'security clearances') to fulfill the needs of an ever-more-encroaching-on-privacy administration.

Meet the man, who many say (most of whom correctly) has been running pretty much everything from deep behind the scenes.

The three "de's:" deregulation, desupervision, and de facto decriminalization.

But please don’t tell me that you are surprised that Barclays was “manipulating” LIBOR.

Just because words like "failing", and "bail out" have no place in the prepared remarks of a former chairman of the SEC, and a advisor to The Carlyle Group, Getco and, of course, Goldman Sachs. Always better to sugarcoat a little just to be on the safe side. Especially when you are in the pocket of High Frequency Trading, Private Equity and Goldman.