Another Democrat retiring: Michigan Senator Carl Levin has announced that he won’t seek reelection in 2014. In theory, this places what would have been a safe Democratic seat up for grabs. In reality, the seat will be up for grabs until after the Republican primary, at which point it will revert back to being a safe Democratic seat. Okay, in all seriousness, Levin’s retirement is indeed a blow to Democrats hoping to retain control of the Senate, but considering that Michigan is generally a pretty blue state, it’s not as big a deal as, say Jay Rockefeller’s retirement in West Virginia (Photo credit: AP). source
Not long after Dodd-Frank got passed, the company made arguments for a loophole in the Volcker Rule, which takes effect in July, to allow some of the types of portfolio hedging that that company used as it produced a $2 billion loss recently. “JPMorgan was the one that made the strongest arguments to allow hedging, and specifically to allow this type of portfolio hedging,” noted one Treasury Department official. Officials who worked on the law, such as Sen. Carl Levin, have made it clear that allowing for this type of activity was not their intention with the law. Now, they have a pretty clear $2 billion argument against allowing such a loophole to get through. (photo by Scott Eells/Bloomberg; edit for clarity)
Our investigation found a financial snake pit rife with greed, conflicts of interest, and wrongdoing.Sen. Carl Levin • Offering an assessment of a report that his subcommittee, which is searching for the causes of the financial crisis, released about the crisis. The report singles out Goldman Sachs, calling it a “case study” for the conflicts of interest that abound around Wall Street — specifically for betting against the very subprime mortgage packages it was selling. Levin also wants to bring perjury charges against Goldman’s CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, for his testimony in Congress last year. In other words, someone has watched “Inside Job.” The stock market is down on the news of the 600-page report. source (via • follow)
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