News

Why Markets Won’t Fix JPMorgan

Thu, 17 May 2012 11:30:04 +0000

By James Kwak

Jonathan Macey, a former professor of mine at Yale Law School,* recently wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal (paywall; excerpts here) arguing that we shouldn’t worry about JPMorgan’s recent trading loss because market forces will ensure that the bank does a better job next time. Here’s a key paragraph:

Because They Can

Thu, 17 May 2012 00:36:02 +0000

By James Kwak

Curating is the New Criticism

Mon, 14 May 2012 20:09:33 +0000

Over at Domus, you can read an interview that I recently conducted with Pedro Gadanho, the new curator of contemporary architecture at MoMA.

Regression to the Mean, JPMorgan Edition

Mon, 14 May 2012 14:58:22 +0000

By James Kwak

Making Banks Small Enough And Simple Enough To Fail

Sat, 12 May 2012 09:57:17 +0000

By Simon Johnson

Almost exactly two years ago, at the height of the Senate debate on financial reform, a serious attempt was made to impose a binding size constraint on our largest banks. That effort – sometimes referred to as the Brown-Kaufman amendment – received the support of 33 senators and failed on the floor of the Senate. (Here is some of my Economix coverage from the time.)

Netlab Conversations on the State of the World: Pedro Gadanho

Fri, 11 May 2012 13:28:58 +0000

On Tuesday, May 15, Columbia's Network Architecture Lab launches the first in a series of Conversations on the State of the World with a discussion between Pedro Gadanho, curator of contemporary architecture at New York's Museum of Modern Art and Netlab director Kazys Varnelis.

JP Morgan Debacle Reveals Fatal Flaw In Federal Reserve Thinking

Fri, 11 May 2012 11:38:41 +0000

By Simon Johnson

Experienced Wall Street executives and traders concede, in private, that Bank of America is not well run and that Citigroup has long been a recipe for disaster. But they always insist that attempts to re-regulate Wall Street are misguided because risk-management has become more sophisticated – everyone, in this view, has become more like Jamie Dimon, head of JP Morgan Chase, with his legendary attention to detail and concern about quantifying the downside.

Bad Dividend Math

Thu, 10 May 2012 01:07:27 +0000

By James Kwak

Who Pays for Facts?

Wed, 09 May 2012 00:53:15 +0000

By James Kwak

The Internet has made possible a golden age of commentary. Anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can create a blog and comment to her heart’s content.

Social Security Matters

Mon, 07 May 2012 17:10:13 +0000

By James Kwak

Catherine Rampell wrote a post last week about how Americans expect to retire later and how more elderly Americans are working. Her last chart also showed that a growing proportion of nonretirees expect Social Security to be a major source of their income in retirement.