William K. Black: The Silver Anniversary of the "Keating Five" Meeting – Speaking Truth to Power
Today is the 25th anniversary of an infamous savings and loan fraud, the use of five senators to escape sanction for a massive violation of the law. I call on President Obama to recognize the hero of this by appointing financial regulator Michael Patriarca as head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency....
William K. Black: The JOBS Act Is so Criminogenic That It Guarantees Full-Time Jobs for Criminologists
The JOBS Act will create a fraud-friendly and fraud-enhancing environment, and add to the unprecedented level of financial fraud by our most elite CEOS that has devastated the U.S. and European economies and cost over 20 million people their jobs.
William K. Black: Newt’s Latest Declaration of Independence From Reality
Gingrich's historical argument rests on a non-existent provision in the Declaration of Independence that he claims was designed to protect non-existent banks from regulation.
William K. Black: How Does a Conservative Evangelical Become a Corporate Tool Supporting a System That Coerces Apple’s Suppliers’ Workers to Have Abortions?
Honest American suppliers, managers, and workers will be the losers unless and until we break the dynamic under which cheaters prosper and fraudulent CEOs and corrupt heads of state become wealthy by cooperating to craft crony capitalism.
William K. Black: A "Capitalist Tool’s" Defense of Apple Morphs into an Anti-Obama Screed
Contrary to a recent screed by Rich Karlgaard, taxing corporations is not an "anti-business" policy, and all modern presidents have taxed corporations. A "tax holiday" is an extraordinary subsidy to corporations that already pay an exceptionally low effective income tax rate.
William K. Black: Once Is Never
The Justice Department should be congratulated for its first mortgage fraud conviction. But it has not yet "walked the walk" on bringing the perpetrators of the mortgage crisis to justice.
William K. Black: ‘An Economic Philosophy That Has Completely Failed’
Effective financial regulation is essential to protect honest firms and consumers from the frauds -- it is distinctly positive sum. The primary purpose of financial regulation is to limit fraud. Does President Obama get this?
William K. Black: How Did a Relatively Small Number of Subprime Loans Cause a Record Crisis?
There has been a destructive overemphasis on subprime loans as the core of the U.S. crisis. But "liar's" loans are a far greater problem, and most problematic subprime loans are actually liar's loans.
William K. Black: 2011 Will Bring More de Facto Decriminalization of Elite Financial Fraud
The FBI and the DOJ remain unlikely to prosecute the elite bank officers that ran the enormous "accounting control frauds" that drove the financial crisis.
William K. Black: Why Cash Incentives for Whistleblowers Are So Useful Against Control Frauds
If control fraud were rare then the proposed financial incentives for whistleblowers would be more dubious. But the current epidemic of accounting control frauds has caused massively greater damage than did their S&L counterparts.
William K. Black: Congress Threatens to Sow the Seeds of Our Next Banking Crisis
Effective regulations and regulators are not the enemy of private markets or private market discipline, but rather one of the essential requirements for efficient, honest markets in a modern economy. Congress must realize this.
William K. Black: The Celtic Chimera
The Celtic Tiger has now revealed itself to be a Celtic Chimera. Irish bank supervision was so weak and Ireland's banks so wild and crazy leading up to the crash that the New York Times called Ireland the new "Wild West."
