Law Commons^™

The Big Banks: Background, Deregulation, Financial Innovation And Too Big To Fail, Charles W. Murdock

Charles W. Murdock

Summary: The Big Banks: Background, Deregulation, Financial Innovation and Too Big to Fail

The U.S. economy is still reeling from the financial crisis that exploded in the fall of 2008. This article asserts that the big banks were major culprits in causing the crisis, by funding the non-bank lenders that created the toxic mortgages which the big banks securitized and sold to unwary investors. Paradoxically, banks which were then too big to fail are even larger today.

The article briefly reviews the history of banking from the Founding Fathers to the deregulatory mindset that has been present since 1980. It …

The Evolution Of The Supreme Court’S Rule 10b-5 Jurisprudence: Protecting Fraud At The Expense Of Investors, Charles W. Murdock

Charles W. Murdock

Summary: The Evolution of the Supreme Court’s Rule 10b-5 Jurisprudence:

Protecting Fraud at the Expense of Investors

This article traces the evolution of Supreme Court jurisprudence over the past forty years through the prism of Rule 10b-5. It uses four “trilogies” to develop this evolution. At the start of the 1970s, the liberal trend characterized by the Warren Court still prevailed. An implied private cause of action was still in favor and litigators were viewed as private attorneys general, enforcing the securities laws to further the policy of protecting investors.

The expansion of Rule 10b-5 was slowed and more judicial …

Save The Economy: Break Up The Big Banks And Shape Up The Regulators, Charles W. Murdock

Charles W. Murdock

Save the Economy: Break Up the Big Banks and Shape Up the Regulators

The U.S. economy is still reeling from the financial crisis that exploded in the fall of 2008. This article asserts that the big banks were major culprits in causing the crisis, by funding the non-bank lenders that created the toxic mortgages which the big banks securitized and sold to unwary investors. Paradoxically, banks which were then too big to fail are even larger today.

The article briefly reviews the history of banking from the Founding Fathers to the deregulatory mindset that has been present since 1980. It …

The Financial Reform Act: Will It Succeed In Reversing The Causes Of The Subprime Crisis And Prevent Future Crises?, Charles W. Murdock

Charles W. Murdock

Summary: The Financial Reform Act: Will It Succeed in Reversing the Causes of the Subprime Crisis and Prevent Future Crises? By: Professor Charles W. Murdock

The current financial crisis, which could have plunged the world into a financial abyss similar to the Great Depression, is far from resolved. The financial institutions, which this article asserts caused the crisis, have returned to profitability and have paid billions of dollars in bonuses, while ordinary Americans have borne the brunt of the meltdown, with formal unemployment hanging around the 10% mark. This has caused some to comment that profits have been privatized and …

How Incentives Drove The Subprime Crisis, Charles W. Murdock

Charles W. Murdock

How Incentives Drove the Subprime Crisis

In order to address any systemic problem, whether the goal is to change the system, regulate the system, or change the incentives driving a system, it is necessary to appreciate all the drivers operating within the system. In the case of the subprime crisis, one of the drivers was the changing nature of the subprime loans, which was not factored into the models used by the investment bankers, the credit rating agencies, and the issuers of credit default swaps.

This paper is an attempt to look dispassionately at the subprime crisis from a particular …