At a meeting of New York City securities lawyers this week, Jed Rakoff did what he does best: challenge Establishment Thinking. “While the economy has slowly improved, there are still millions of Americans leading lives of quiet desperation — without jobs, without resources, without hope.” Then he asked: Who is to blame?

Rakoff is the iconoclastic U.S. District Court judge who’s been at the heart of some of the most significant trials stemming from the financial crisis. And what he really wanted to know is why more there haven’t been more criminal prosecutions of top financial executives (the very ones who, not coincidentally, made many of the people in his audience quite wealthy). To Rakoff the answer, clearly, is gun-shy federal prosecutors.  Why Are Financial Executives Not Prosecuted for Subprime Mortgage Fraud

Warren’s speech was an indictment not only of the financial institutions that “have fought to delay and hamstring the implementation of financial reform,” after “exploiting consumers, larding their books with excessive risk, and making bad bets,” but also of the regulators and lawmakers—many from her own party—who are refusing to hold the financial sector to account.

Stanford economist Anat Admati in a new book argues with Warren that banks should fund their investments by selling a lot more stock and borrowing a lot less, especially in the form of run-prone short-term debt, as most other companies do.   Elizabeth Warren on Banks Free Pass

Suriname President`s Son on US terror Charges

Mr Bouterse reportedly accepted $2 million to help Hezbollah fighters settle in Suriname. He gave them passports and armed them with surface-to-air missiles and other weapons.
Corruption Report

SEC Biography:  Chair Mary Jo White

U.S. regulators on Thursday barred a New York firm and four of its employees from auditing public companies, saying they failed to audit properly three Chinese companies traded in the U.S.

The sanctions against Sherb & Co. and the four employees represent the Securities and Exchange Commission’s latest action against so-called gatekeepers: auditors, advisers, financiers and other professionals who work with Chinese companies and have helped them gain access to U.S. markets.
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