Commentary / World Jul 23, 2013

German banks at the top of the cosseted heap

German opposition to an EU bank-resolution mechanism is a ploy to hide anticompetitive behavior in which German taxpayers subsidize the banks.

Commentary / World Mar 27, 2013

ECB head Mario Draghi's opiate of the markets

From the standpoint of EU economic stability, the division of Italy's parliament into three mutually incompatible political forces is a terrible outcome.

Commentary / Japan Feb 1, 2013

Mortgage fraud culture has its walk of the stars

A few criminal convictions have sent a powerful signal in the fight against insider trading. The stars of wider-scale bank mortgage fraud have walked.

Commentary / World Feb 13, 2011

Minding a world banker's conflict of interest

CHICAGO — When Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a former French finance minister, was appointed managing director of the International Monetary Fund in 2007, many developing countries objected — not to him, but to the tradition that gave the IMF's top job to a European, with the ...

Commentary / World May 6, 2010

Brand, but don't ban, credit default swaps

CHICAGO — The lawsuit filed last month by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission against Goldman Sachs for securities fraud, charging the bank with misrepresenting the way a collateralized debt obligations had been formed, has revived public disgust at credit default swaps (CDS), the ...

Commentary / World Oct 1, 2008

U.S. Treasury Secretary Paulson is wrong

CHICAGO — When a profitable company is hit by a very large liability, the solution is not to have the government buy its assets at inflated prices. The solution, instead, is protection under bankruptcy law, which in the United States means Chapter 11. Under ...