Aram Zucker-Scharff

salon:

The decision by General Electric to sell off its financial unit, GE Capital, is important, though not for the reasons many have been giving. General Electric focusing on manufacturing instead of lending represents one of the few retreats for creeping financialization – the transformation of every corporation into a banking and trading concern – in recent decades. More importantly, the positive market reaction to GE’s decision shows that Dodd-Frank, if anything, didn’t go far enough. If you can break up GE Capital without systemic disruption or loss of global competitiveness, you can break up the banks, too.

Thanks to Washington, big banks are getting sneakier — but G.E. just proved it doesn’t have to be that way

Remember how workers were supposed to retire and open up higher positions and jobs for young people to move in to? That’s not happening because retirement is basically dead! Instead we’ll get grayternships, where older workers who would normally have r…

Regulator Benjamin Lawsky Is the Man Banks Fear Most:

Using the law as a cudgel to insure banking executives get fired for their crimes and banks feel the pain when they break the law? Having meetings in which bank CEOs “begged for mercy”? Closing the loopholes the Feds don’t have the will or leverage to close? Leaving banks ‘with no comment’?

Leaving federal agencies who have failed to regulate Too Big To Fail banks upset? Seeking larger fines so aggressively that it makes it ‘harder to settle’? Forcing Treasury to move faster? Slapping down a big four consulting firm? Taking on the insurance companies?

Sign me up for this guy’s fan club.

rollingstone:

Colorado lawmakers have approved the world’s first banking system designed to accommodate the marijuana industry.