Skip to content

Category Archives: Corporate Crime

Charter School madness

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

I read a lot of blogs about economics, so I've become educated about “rent seekers”; individuals or corporations that find ways of diverting public money into their own coffers without providing any significant service in return. Pro Publica has exposed a prime example in the charter school industry: “A couple of years ago, auditors looked […]

Also filed in Education | | Comments (0)

Andrew Ross Sorkin stands up for the little guy

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

One disadvantage of being a part time blogger, usually forced to bloviate at night, is that by the time you're free to write, the low hanging fruit has been picked clean. So I was sure this morning that by the time I got a chance to take a whack at Andrew Ross Sorkin's column in […]

Also filed in | | Comments (0)

Quite a rap sheet

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

I have, in the past, compared our bigger banks (looking at you, JP Morgan Chase) to organized crime. It's hardly an original idea; in fact, only our major media and law enforcement agencies appear to have missed the parallels. Still, it's good to see someone do the work of putting the pieces together for future […]

Also filed in | | Comments (0)

Equal Justice for All

Monday, November 10, 2014

I don't pretend to be an expert in the criminal law, but I'm sure if you're average street person violates again while they're on probation, their violation is rarely “waived”. But, not surprisingly, it's different for banks. It seems that the SEC often makes deals with banks that provide that, should they run afoul of […]

Also filed in | | Comments (0)

Flash Boys (Book review, sort of)

Sunday, November 2, 2014

I just finished Michael Lewis's Flash Boys. I know I'm late to the game commenting on this book, but my take on it might be a little different. To me, it illustrates what comes of good timing, good publicity, or both. First, the basic premise of the book: the stock market is rigged. Every time […]

Also filed in Economics | | Comments (0)

Fair and balanced everywhere we go

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Paul Krugman took a plane ride, and was subjected (sound blessedly off) to Newsmax TV (no choice, everyone had to watch it), which he speculates is even more right wing than Fox: This sort of thing is obviously an important part of the reason we’re living in an age of derp. Events and data may […]

Also filed in Media | | Comments (0)

Small enough to jail

Thursday, October 2, 2014

The New York Times reports that car dealers have taken a page from Wall Street: Lenders in the housing boom created so-called liar loans, which enabled borrowers, even those with no income or assets, to inflate their income. Government authorities are now taking aim at a new generation of liar loans. Only this time it […]

Also filed in | | Comments (0)

This passes for progress in today’s world

Monday, September 29, 2014

Well, here's some good news and bad news: The Department of Defense released proposed rules today targeting the practices of a broad range of high-cost lenders and prohibiting them from charging service members interest rates over 36 percent. The new rules would overhaul the Military Lending Act, which, when enacted in 2007, narrowly defined potentially […]

Also filed in Good News | | Comments (0)

The future of education

Thursday, September 25, 2014

We should never forget that a substantial number of the people who are getting rich in this land of ever increasing inequality are doing so by sucking hard at the government teat. Among the worst offenders is the relatively new for-profit education industry. There was a time when even the rich kept their hands off […]

Also filed in | | Comments (0)

Charity begins at home, and stays there

Saturday, September 6, 2014

The rich certainly are different than you and me. When they give money to charity, they have the option of having their cake and eating it too.  I stumbled on this article at the New York Review of Books (most of it is behind a paywall, I subscribe so could read the whole thing). It’s be Lewis […]

Also filed in | | Comments (0)