* Wall Street’s Faustian Bargain with Washington (Randall W. Forsyth, Wall Street Journal)
have claimed it has been too easy on Wall Street by providing billions in bailouts following the financial meltdown. Now, however, the Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking its pound of flesh in the form of civil suits against participants in two sectors caught up in last year’s near-meltdown, credit-default swaps and money-market funds.
* More live blogging from the Senate Banking Committee’s “too big to fail” hearing (Emily.Flitter, American Banker)
The Senate Banking Committee is holding a hearing on how to regulate institutions that are too big to fail. The first panel, on which Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chariman Sheila Bair and Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Gary Stern testified, addressed the timing and composition of a systemic resolution authority. Now the second group of witnesses has assembled at the table.
* Bankruptcy judge mulls Chrysler plan as GM talks loom (Emily Chasan, KTAK)
(Reuters) – A U.S. bankruptcy judge on Tuesday considered whether Chrysler LLC could move forward with its plans for a quick sale of most of its assets while rival General Motors Corp prepared to resume talks with its union and detailed a plan that could shift majority ownership control to the U.S. government.
* KEN SILVERSTEINThe Financial Crisis, the IMF and Karl Marx (Ken Silverstein, Harper’s Magazine)
The Atlantic has a good piece in its current issue called The Quiet Coup: How bankers took power, and how theyre impeding recovery , written by a former IMF official named Simon Johnson. He describes the U.S. as potentially an emerging banana republic, saying, [E]lite business interestsfinanciers, in the case of the U.S.played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gamb…
* SEC makes new short-selling rules a priority (Marcy Gordon, San Francisco Chronicle)
Investors and lawmakers have been clamoring for the SEC to put new brakes on trading moves they say worsened the market’s downturn.
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Filed under: Hedge Funds , Collateralized, Credit-default, Exchange Commission, Federal Deposit Insurance, First Lady Michelle, General Motors Corp, Minneapolis President, Powerful People, Senate Banking Committee, The Quiet Coup:
