The SEC’s Soft Touch For Repeat Offenders

NYT and Bloomberg show how often banks violate promises not to re-commit fraud

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 8, 2011 at 03:14 PM

Bloomberg's Jonathan Weil wrote a swell column last week on the SEC's latest Citigroup wrist-slap. Weil noted that one of... More

Dirty Business (As Usual) at News Corporation

A golden parachute for Rebekah Brooks and surveillance of hacking victims’ lawyers

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 7, 2011 at 01:16 PM

You know a company has serious problems when it's unsurprising that it gives an executive a golden parachute after her... More

Audit Notes: Citi’s Slaps, College Is Cheap, Voicemail Interception Compensation Scheme

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 4, 2011 at 07:38 PM

Bloomberg's Jonathan Weil has an excellent, tough column on the latest settlement between Citigroup and the SEC, which shows how... More

The Wall Street Journal Pooh-Poohs Bank Transfer Day

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 4, 2011 at 07:22 PM

This Wall Street Journal story on Bank Transfer Day, the push to get people to move their money out of... More

WSJ On MF Global and Window Dressing

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 4, 2011 at 05:25 PM

It looks like Jon Corzine's MF Global tried to hide how much risk it was taking on by temporarily lowering... More

Audit Notes: Toledo Blade Series, Chait on Pethokoukis, Censorship Inc.

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 3, 2011 at 07:41 PM

The Toledo Blade is running a very good series on middle class people descending into poverty. What I like about... More

Bernanke Calls for Government Spending and Much of the Press Ignores It (Again)

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 3, 2011 at 05:50 PM

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke called for more fiscal stimulus yesterday in his most direct plea yet for the government... More

The Journal Fizzles on Occupy Oakland Protest

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 3, 2011 at 03:10 PM

Several thousand Occupy movement protestors shut down the Port of Oakland yesterday, a week after Oakland police attacked the protest... More

Bloomberg on How a European AIG Would Hit the U.S.

Big U.S. banks are upping their exposure to Europe by selling credit-default swaps

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 2, 2011 at 06:57 PM

Bloomberg News has an important report on how sovereign defaults in Europe could infect the U.S. banking system via ye... More

Audit Notes: Bloomberg Goes Wallison, Friedman, Golden Parachutes

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 1, 2011 at 07:48 PM

Mayor Bloomberg is supposed to be the technocratic mayor of New York City—the anti-wingnut. So what's he doing saying things... More

Subprime Déjà Vu

The Los Angeles Times investigates the Buy Here Pay Here car market

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 1, 2011 at 07:20 PM

In this market, the companies handing out loans make money whether you pay them back or not. Agents trick hard-luck,... More

More on the Myth of Income Equality

By Ryan Chittum   Oct 31, 2011 at 02:34 PM

James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute responds to my criticism of his misleading post on "why income inequality is... More

Audit Notes: The Occupy-Rwanda Connection, Reckless Blame, Jarvis For Dummies

By Ryan Chittum   Oct 28, 2011 at 07:39 PM

Speaking of Fort Smith's City Wire, the website reports on a talk by former Alltel CEO Scott Ford to the... More

Flack-Driven Local Coverage of a Factory Closure Fails

Fort Smith’s Southwest Times Record blows it on a huge loss to the community

By Ryan Chittum   Oct 28, 2011 at 06:33 PM

Whirpool is laying off more than a thousand employees in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and shipping the work to Mexico and... More

Weak Coverage of SEC Settlement With Wall Street’s Self-Regulator

By Ryan Chittum   Oct 28, 2011 at 12:25 PM

This morning's coverage of the SEC's settlement with Wall Street self-regulator FINRA is frustrating. We're told that FINRA, which was... More

Audit Notes: Debt Collector Scams, Occupy Oakland Coverage, Jest

By Ryan Chittum   Oct 27, 2011 at 07:47 PM

The Washington Post reports on two FTC complaints against California debt collector companies, which "highlight an increase in complaints about... More

Cataloging the Banks’ Crimes and Misdeeds

By Ryan Chittum   Oct 27, 2011 at 06:28 PM

This excellent Daily Beast piece by Gary Rivlin catalogs the major crimes of the four biggest U.S. banks plus Goldman... More

Audit Notes: More on Inequality, Les Hinton’s Memory

By Ryan Chittum   Oct 26, 2011 at 06:36 PM

The inequality I talked about earlier today has been caused on a couple of levels. While the market income of... More

The Myth of Income Equality, Courtesy of AEI

New CBO data show what (almost) everybody already knows

By Ryan Chittum   Oct 26, 2011 at 05:31 PM

This post by James Pethokoukis, who recently hopped over to AEI from Reuters, shows how to combine the worst tendencies... More

Austerity and Objectivity

Why are spending cuts contractionary overseas but not here?

By Ryan Chittum   Oct 25, 2011 at 02:31 PM

The top story in The Wall Street Journal today is interesting for what it says about how American papers are... More