Financial Services Industry Archive

After a two-year battle in which the nation’s largest home insurer packed its bags and almost left the Sunshine State, State Farm seems to be warming up to staying put in Florida. Part of the new feel-good era may have to do with the crumbling colossus of Charlie Crist, Florida’s governor and wanna-be U.S. Senator, who appears to have been abandoned by Republicans due to his more...

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It’s been a tough week for the big three rating agencies: Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s Investors Service, and Fitch Ratings, which seem to be following in the footsteps of the big three auto makers. First the National Association of Insurance Commissioners put up a “No Help Wanted” sign; at least as far as they were concerned. After a semi-secret bidding contest,...

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If you believe in the old political adage, “When nobody likes you, you must be doing a good job,” then U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Sure, a Rasmussen telephone survey shows that 42 percent of Americans believe Geithner is doing a “poor” job,” while only 20 percent think he’s doing a good job. According to the...

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“You have got be kidding.” That’s House Financial Services Committee communications director Steve Adamske’s blunt assessment of a story today by National Journal correspondent John Maggs on the Obama Administration’s financial reform plan (subscription required). In a statement, the congressional panel accuses Maggs of multiple errors and misrepresentations in the...

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Goldman Sachs’s employee compensation policy stipulates that “employees should think and act like long-term shareholders.” Which is why we can expect the investment bank’s workers to give themselves a nice, fat pay cut. After all, that’s what some of the company’s big shareholders seem to want, according to the WSJ, presumably in hopes of giving themselves a...

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It was damn good theater. The Republican members of Congress’s Joint Finance Committee had U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on the carpet and were trying to pull the rug out from under him. They blamed him for the American International Group bailout, for giving away too much to AIG’s bank creditors after the bailout, for the state of the economy, for everything in fact but the...

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With ultra-low-to-non-existent interest rates in the western world, banks are experiencing something of a borrowing ball. As a result, one European politician is becoming concerned about the reliance of financial institutions on cheap debt. “Emergency treatment and strong medicines are sometimes necessary. But, if their use is prolonged, they can lead to dependence and even addiction...

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With Goldman Sachs (GS) and Warren Buffett sponsoring a $500 million loan package for small businesses in the wake of this year’s largest bankruptcy, that of small- and medium-sized business lender CIT Group, lending to the nation’s little organizations has never been a hotter topic than it is now. With this in mind, I spoke with Dan Drechsel, chief executive of Atlanta-based...

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Growing numbers of Americans are falling behind on their home loans, a bad sign for the housing sector, banks and the broader U.S. economy. As of the end of September, a record 14.4 percent of people with mortgages were in foreclosure or at least one payment past due, according to a new survey by the Mortgage Bankers Association. Rising foreclosures hurts home prices, which in turn flips more...

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The most recent Consumer Price Index makes a compelling case for the fact that state regulators may not be keeping up with car insurance rates, especially at a time when many Americans are least able to pay their bills. Earlier this week the U.S. Department of Labor released figures showing that while the CPI, which measures the cost of much of what we buy and use, declined by 0.2 percent...

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