Jon Corzine

Corzine Testifies On MF Global Collapse: 'I Simply Do Not Know Where The Money Is'

Jillian Rayfield | December 8, 2011, 5:39PM

Jon Corzine denied any knowledge of what happened to the estimated $1.2 billion in customer funds that went missing in the days before MF Global went bankrupt, telling a congressional panel on Thursday he "was stunned" when he heard about the funds, but "I simply do not know where the money is."

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Jon Corzine

$700 Million Disappears From Corzine's Bankrupt Firm

David Teich | November 1, 2011, 10:20AM

Former New Jersey Governor and Former MF Global CEO Jon Corzine

According to multiple reports, almost $700 million in customer money has gone "missing" from MF Global, the brokerage firm helmed by former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday. And no one seems to know where it went.

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Michael Bloomberg

Bloomberg: Occupy Wall Street Is Targeting People 'Struggling To Make Ends Meet'

Jillian Rayfield | October 3, 2011, 12:41PM

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg

New York City's billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg thinks the Occupy Wall Street protesters shouldn't be fighting Wall Street, because most of those people are "struggling to make ends meet."

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Eliot Spitzer

Spitzer Sued For Libel Over Column On Insurance Firm's Alleged Kickbacks

Jillian Rayfield | August 22, 2011, 5:55PM

Fmr. N.Y. Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D)

Former New York Gov. and former CNN talk show host Eliot Spitzer has been slapped with two libel lawsuits over a column he wrote for Slate about an insurance firm he investigated in 2004 for allegedly taking kickbacks and bid-rigging.

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Wall Street

Wall Street Takes Aim At New Transparency Rule For Executive Pay

Susan Crabtree | July 22, 2011, 6:00AM

Wall Street

Wall Street has deployed an army of lobbyists to try to whittle away as much of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill as possible, spending $242.2 million on 712 hired guns to press their message on Capitol Hill since the beginning of 2010, according to a new report by Public Citizen.

The 30 most politically active business and financial industry organizations also ponied up $15.6 million in federal political contributions during the same time period. The entities with the deepest pockets include: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Bankers Association, the Financial Services Roundtable, MetLife, Goldman Sachs, to name just a few.

Why lay out so much cash to influence Washington in the months leading up to the first anniversary of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law? Some of Wall Street's biggest firms are gunning for a rule specifically designed to address one the main causes of the financial meltdown: exorbitant incentive-based executive compensation packages.

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Wall Street

Tea Partiers Swept In On Anti-Wall Street Wave Now Pushing Deregulation

Ryan J. Reilly | May 24, 2011, 3:40PM

Wall Street

Tea Party-backed candidates swept into office on the wave of anger over the government's bailout of Wall Street are now bringing in the big bucks from the financial sector at the same time they're lining up to rewrite financial regulations.

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FBI

'Eager Beaver' FBI Agent's Attempt To Flip Witness Exposed Feds' Big Insider Trading Case

Ryan J. Reilly | November 23, 2010, 11:57AM

New York Stock Exchange

John Kinnucan, an independent analyst with a financial services firm, was sitting on his front porch in Portland, Oregon sipping wine on Oct. 25 when two men in business suits emerged from a gray sedan and identified themselves as FBI agents.

They were there to flip him, to have him cooperate and give them an inside look at his clients as part of a wide-ranging investigation of insider trading which has lead to searches of hedge funds in recent days.

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Bailout

Bailout: Best Program Evaaah?

Zachary Roth | May 11, 2010, 9:26AM

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson

As unpopular government initiatives go, the financial bailout would seem to rank somewhere up there between Prohibition and the Stamp Act.

In the political sphere -- and not just in far-right circles -- it's something close to a consensus view that the bailout was a corrupt giveaway of taxpayers dollars to Wall Street that will leave us deep in the red for decades. As Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) put it after TARP passed: "Only two things are certain: the bill will provide hundreds of billions of dollars to investors who made bad decisions and Wall Street executives; and our children and grandchildren will now face a national debt that is hundreds of billions of dollars higher." Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) was just ousted by state Republicans, who cited his vote for the TARP and derisively nicknamed him "Bailout Bob." And Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has taken to claiming, implausibly, that he only supported the bailout because he was misled about the fact that it was targeted at the financial sector (seriously).

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Stop Too Big To Fail

Shady Anti-Financial Reform Outfit Cites Robert Reich In New Ad (VIDEO)

Justin Elliott | April 27, 2010, 12:50PM

A screen shot from a Stop Too Big To Fail ad featuring former Labor Secretary Robert Reich

The shady anti-financial reform group Stop Too Big To Fail today announced a new TV advertising push in three key states that features an out-of-context quote from former Labor Secretary Robert Reich to bolster its case to kill financial reform.

As TPMmuckraker has reported, Stop Too Big To Fail is the project of a veteran astroturf operation called Consumers for Competitive Choice, and it's using the services of an ad agency that worked with the Swift Boat Vets For Truth in 2004. It has already spent $1.6 million on anti-reform ads and won't say who's funding the group's efforts.

Stop Too Big To Fail previously featured progressive economist Simon Johnson on one of its media conference calls before he realized the goals of the outfit and demanded it stop using his name. Now, Stop Too Big To Fail has turned to using Reich to add credibility to a message designed to sound progressive, while in fact advocating to kill the financial reform legislation.

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Securities and Exchange Commission

SEC IG To Probe Potential Coordination With White House On Goldman Suit

Zachary Roth | April 23, 2010, 5:28PM

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA)

We told you earlier about the tireless -- and often fruitless -- efforts of Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) to find a scandal to stick to the Obama administration. Well, today he had some luck.

It's not the Pentagon Papers, but SEC inspector general David Kotz just announced on Fox News that he will launch an internal investigation into whether there was improper coordination with the White House over the recent decision to file a lawsuit against Goldman Sachs. "We need to understand what led to the decision to announce or bring the case on that day," Kotz told Neil Cavuto. "See if there was any undue influence involved and so we'll look very carefully to investigate that and see what we determine."

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Joseph Cassano

Report: AIG Probe Likely Wrapping Up Without Criminal Charges

Zachary Roth | April 5, 2010, 10:10AM

Former AIG Financial Products chief Joseph Cassano

The federal probe into the circumstances that triggered the near-collapse of AIG in 2008 has "hit a brick wall," unnamed sources have told CBS News.

Joseph Cassano, the AIG exec at the center of the probe, will sit down next week with DOJ lawyers, in what will likely bring an end to the investigation. Cassano is former head of AIG Financial Products, the unit of the company responsible for the disastrous credit-default swaps that led to the firm being bailed out to the tune of $180 billion.

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Pay-Day Lenders

After Lobbying By Pay-Day Lenders, Dodd Bill Is Weakened

Zachary Roth | March 16, 2010, 12:33PM

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT).

As we've reported, the pay-day lending industry -- one of the most predatory players corners in the modern financial system -- has recently been hard at work lobbying to water down provisions in the financial regulatory reform bill currently in the Senate. (We also told you about the industry's key lobbyist, who used to be the sub-prime industry's man in Washington.)

Now Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) has unveiled the reform proposal that will create the basis for the Senate bill. And it looks like the industry's lobbying, up to a point, has paid off -- although it's still unhappy that it's being seriously regulated at all.

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Lobbyists

Business Lobby Shifting Back To GOP

Zachary Roth | February 8, 2010, 4:04PM

Grover Norquist

Some of the business interests that had abandoned their traditional conservatism to flirt with the Obama agenda may now be shifting back towards the GOP -- another sign that the president's standing is badly weakened a year after taking office.

During 2008 and much of 2009, Obama enjoyed an unusual amount of support for a Democrat from the business community, much of which had grown disillusioned with President Bush and hoped for a return to the steady growth of the Clinton years. But after a string of political setbacks, high-lighted by Scott Brown's win last month in the Massachusetts Senate race, some key business groups and sectors appear to be shifting back to the GOP column.

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Bank of America

Cuomo Charges BofA, Lewis, With Securities Fraud

Zachary Roth | February 4, 2010, 12:18PM

Former Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has filed civil securities fraud charges against Bank of America and the firm's former CEO Ken Lewis, reports (sub. req.) the Wall Street Journal.

Cuomo alleges that Lewis, Chief Financial Officer Joe Price, and other BofA execs, chose not to disclose to shareholders the extent of the losses at Merrill Lynch before BofA bought the ailing Wall St. investment bank in late 2008.

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Campaign Finance

Game Change: Corporations Gearing Up To Exploit New Money-In-Politics Rules

Zachary Roth | January 25, 2010, 7:55PM

In the wake of Thursday's Supreme Court ruling on money in politics, corporations looking to affect the process already are strategizing with lawyers, consultants, and PR pros on how to capitalize on the changed landscape.

"There clearly are clients who are asking questions about what it means for them," Larry Noble, a former general counsel for the FEC who's now a lawyer at Skadden Arps, told TPMmuckraker. "They're asking: 'what is it that I wasn't allowed to do before that I can now do?'"

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Chamber of Commerce

Chamber CEO's 'Striking Innovation': Helping Corporate Backers Fund Attack Ads On The Down-Low

Zachary Roth | January 14, 2010, 3:43PM

Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Tom Donohue

This week, National Journal reported that the health insurance lobby funneled tens of millions of dollars to the Chamber of Commerce to fund an ad campaign attacking heath-care reform. The Chamber essentially acted as a pass-through, allowing the health insurers to avoid having their names tied to the campaign.

The story understandably generated outrage -- with health-care reform advocates now demanding hearings. But it looks like the pass-through tactic is nothing new. In fact, it's a technique the Chamber has been pioneering for almost a decade.

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Jamie Dimon

VIDEO: JPMorgan CEO: 'We Have Crises Every Five Or Ten Years' -- So No Biggie

Zachary Roth | January 13, 2010, 3:11PM

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon

The banking crisis that nearly triggered the collapse of the U.S. financial sector in 2008 and continues to cause after-shocks around the world was a routine occurrence, the head of one of the investment banks that helped cause it suggested today.

Here's what Jamie Dimon, CEO of bailout beneficiary JPMorgan Chase, said during testimony before the Washington commission that's probing the causes of the crisis:

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Wall Street

Time For Some Answers: Wall St. CEOs To Go Before Financial Crisis Panel

Zachary Roth | January 13, 2010, 8:57AM

Clockwise from top left: CEO's Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, Brian Moynihan of Bank of America, and John Mack of Morgan Stanley.

What did top banking executives know about the events that led to the near-collapse of the financial system in 2008, and when did they know it? Those are two of the questions that we may start getting answers to this morning, when the commission probing the causes of the crisis holds its first public hearing.

The CEOS of four bailed-out banking behemoths -- Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, John Mack of Morgan Stanley, and Brian Moynihan of Bank of America -- all will go before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in Washington today.

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Barney Frank

Frank Supports Hearings On Fed-AIG Emails

Zachary Roth | January 8, 2010, 12:08PM

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner

Momentum is building for hearings on what Tim Geithner knew and when he knew it about the New York Fed's effort to press AIG to keep secret details of its massive federal bailout.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), who chairs the House Financial Services committee, told BusinessWeek: "To the extent that there were problems in that AIG situation, we have taken steps to prevent their occurrence."

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Wall Street

New Dems Met With Wall St. Execs While Pushing to Weaken Financial Reform

Zachary Roth | January 6, 2010, 12:45PM

Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-NY)

A group of moderate Democrats held private meetings this fall with executives from Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase, while in the midst of pushing successfully to water down landmark legislation designed to beef up regulation of the financial industry.

In mid October, members of the New Democrat Coalition (NDC), a caucus of pro-business Democrats, traveled to New York City. According to an emailed itinerary for the trip drawn up by an event planner working for the group and obtained by TPMmuckraker, members met on October 12 with executives from Goldman, and the following day with execs from JP Morgan. Sandwiched between those events was a fundraiser for the New Dems, and a meeting with CEOs from Marsh and McLellan Companies, a consulting and insurance firm.

[SEE THE ITINERARY EMAIL HERE. SEE AN INVITATION FOR THE FUNDRAISER HERE]

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Securities and Exchange Commission

SEC, Battered By Madoff, Yet To Implement Many Recommendations For Improvement

Zachary Roth | December 17, 2009, 12:53PM

A good government group is slamming the Securities and Exchange Commission for ignoring or delaying on hundreds of recommendations made by the agency's internal watchdog. Many of these recommendations were made in the wake of the SEC's failure to detect Bernie Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme, a misstep for which the agency was widely derided earlier this year.

Two documents obtained through a FOIA by the Project on Government Oversight show that hundreds of recommendations made since December 2007 by the SEC's Office of the Inspector General have gone unimplemented.

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Neel Kashkari

Former Bailout Czar Signs On With Firm That Helped Run Bailout

Zachary Roth | December 9, 2009, 3:10PM

Neel Kashkari

What a difference a day makes.

On Sunday, we learned from a florid Washington Post profile that Neel Kashkari, the Treasury Department's one-time bailout czar, is now Thoreau-ing it up in the Northern California woods. (Sample line: "The moon hits his stubble, which is six days old.") But the very next day, the investment behemoth PIMCO announced that it had hired Kashkari as a managing director and the head of new investment initiatives.

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CNBC

CNBC Blinded By Lavish Lifestyle Of Another Alleged Ponzi Schemer

Zachary Roth | December 1, 2009, 2:47PM

Tim Durham

Jon Stewart has already cornered the market on lampooning CNBC for the chronic lack of skepticism that characterized its coverage of the financial world during the boom years.

But the network's failure wasn't just a case of cheer-leading for Wall Street banks that made bad bets on the housing market. Both before and after last fall's financial crisis, CNBC has lavished fawning coverage on several high-flying financiers who later, say prosecutors, turned out to be little more than frauds. And this past week offered the latest example.

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Bernard Madoff

Madoff Accountant Pleads Guilty To Fraud

Zachary Roth | November 3, 2009, 5:25PM

David Friehling

Bernie Madoff's former accountant has pleaded guilty to fraud in connection with his auditing of Madoff's operation. But David Friehling denied that he knew anything about the underlying massive Ponzi scheme, which Madoff has pleaded guilty to orchestrating.

Friehling admitted that he didn't independently audit Madoff's financial statements, saying he took Madoff's claims at "face value." But he said (sub. req.) he put his own and his family's money with Madoff. In what was "the biggest mistake of my life, I placed my trust in Bernard Madoff," he said.

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Bernard Madoff

SEC-er To Madoff: "It's A Big Organization, We Don't Talk To Each Other"

Zachary Roth | October 30, 2009, 7:08PM

During a 2006 examination, an SEC staffer asked Bernie Madoff for information. Madoff replied that he had already provided it to a top agency official. To which the SEC-er responded: "It's a big organization, we don't talk to each other."

That's according to Madoff's testimony to SEC investigators. The agency's inspector general's office has just released documents that were part of its probe into its failures on the Madoff affair. And they further the picture of a regulator at which the right hand didn't know what the left was doing, and which depended on inexperienced and over-matched agents to sniff out complex financial frauds like Madoff's.

You can see all the documents here. And you can see Madoff's testimony here.

Let us know in comments about anything else that jumps out.

Bernard Madoff

Failing Upward: Many SECers Who Failed To Catch Madoff Haven't Paid A Price

Alex Amend | October 13, 2009, 9:49AM

Ever wonder what happened to the SEC staffers and supervisors who, for nearly two decades, managed to miss Bernie Madoff's multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme, despite a persistent whistle-blower and multiple inquiries -- a monumental level of incompetence that "astonished" even Madoff himself?

Well, some saw their failures rewarded with high-paying private-sector jobs, while others are still at the agency, charged with catching the next Madoff.

Via CNN, here's a quick look at what happened to some of the major players.

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Hassan Nemazee

Feds: Nemazee Swindled Two Other Banks

Zachary Roth | September 2, 2009, 4:06PM

Hassan Nemazee

It looks like that fraudulent $74 million loan that top Democratic fundraiser Hassan Nemazee allegedly obtained from Citigroup may have just been the tip of the iceberg.

In a letter to the judge in Nemazee's case, reported by Reuters, prosecutors claimed that Nemazee also ripped off two other banks.

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Bernard Madoff

Madoff Claimed He Was On "Short List" For SEC Chair

Zachary Roth | September 2, 2009, 3:36PM

When Franklin Roosevelt appointed Joseph P. Kennedy as SEC chair, the president responded to concerns about Kennedy's unsavory reputation by declaring: "It takes a thief to catch a thief."

Over 70 years later, Bernard Madoff may have been hoping that President Bush agreed.

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Bernard Madoff

Madoff: "I Thought It Was The End Game. Over" -- But SEC Never Followed Up!

Zachary Roth | September 2, 2009, 3:16PM

It's not really news that the SEC screwed up big-time on Bernard Madoff. But the just released executive summary (pdf) of the agency's inspector general report really brings home just how far that failure went.

The summary, produced by SEC inspector general David Kotz, paints a picture of a series of botched investigations going back to 1992, in which inexperienced, unsophisticated and incurious agency examiners repeatedly failed to take seemingly obvious steps that would have uncovered Madoff's massive scam. And it shows how Madoff used his air of authority to confuse and intimidate the over-matched Feds in order to keep them at bay.

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Bernard Madoff

SEC Lawyer Who Failed To Catch Madoff Got Highest Performance Rating

Zachary Roth | September 2, 2009, 2:26PM

The SEC attorney who failed, despite numerous red flags, to catch Bernie Madoff's colossal fraud received the highest possible performance rating from the agency -- citing her "ability to understand and analyze the complex issues of the Madoff investigation" -- soon after the probe closed in 2006.

That's according to an SEC inspector general report on the Madoff fiasco, whose executive summary (pdf) was released this afternoon. The full report will be made available in the coming days.

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