Bull by the Horns is the story of financial calamity seen from the perspective of this public servant, rendered from detailed notes. We learn with whom she met, what was said, what decisions taken, and how things turned out. She begins with the battles over deregulation of the banks (Basel II), with the gathering sub-prime storm, and proceeds through the disaster: WaMu, Wachovia, Citigroup, Bank of America, AIG, Citigroup again. And then the battles of the aftermath, over among other things Dodd-Frank, Basel III and the robosigning frauds. This is a book for aficionados of infuriating detail.

Actively helping people is fun. Coping with power structures directly isn’t.

The Federal Reserve is trying to roll up a key law that allows borrowers to challenge predatory lending. Under “rescission” rules, if a borrower can prove that a mortgage loan was created in a predatory way, they can basically nullify the bank’s right to foreclose. Under the Fed’s new proposal, borrowers would have to pay off the balance of the predatory loan before the bank loses the right to foreclose, which renders a rescission judgment virtually meaningless. The entire point is to void out a fraudulent mortgage.

At FDL News, David Dayen covers an article on Elizabeth Warren in which she argues, correctly, that if the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau had been up and running years ago, much of the banking/mortgage fraud could/would have been prevented.

That’s fine as far as it goes. But there’s something missing from the polite Ms. Warren’s telling.

Charles Ferguson has made a documentary that must be seen if you want to understand why the same people who let the housing bubble and the 2008 financial meltdown happen are still in charge. But if you can’t go out and see Inside Job right away (it opened in New York and Los Angeles Friday), read Ferguson’s article, “Larry Summers and the Subversion of Economics,” summarizing his case in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The Washington Post thinks the Democrats would be better off running for re-election with a higher unemployment rate.

The details are still being worked out, and we have to wait and see the language, but it does appear that the House did secure more disclosure, on an ongoing basis, for the Fed’s activities. Late yesterday, at the conference committee, lead Senate negotiator Chris Dodd announced that his side would accept several provisions that would add transparency to the Fed.

Remarkably, the Audit the Fed movement includes all of the 96 Senators who were present Tuesday.

Good for Ron Paul for telling Rahm and his little pro-bank whip operation to get stuffed. He’s seizing a moment of transpartisan anger at the banks and he’s pointing it straight at the Wall Street apologists. It will be interesting to see how far he can take it.

Unable to whip the votes against Audit the Fed in the Senate, the White House prevailed upon Bernie Sanders to limit the audit to only going back to 2007, and Bernie complied.  What does that mean?  Scarecrow: The key is not when they audit, it’s what the get to audit. They’ve excluded the workings of [...]