March 19, 2010 at 3:33 pm
Ex-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has acknowledged the Fed’s failure to grasp the magnitude of the housing bubble, but offered some policy prescriptions to avoid another crash. Economics Professor Laurence Kotlikoff, whose new book “Jimmy Stewart is Dead” is about bankings’s future, applauds Greenspan for saying banks should have to hold bonds that automatically covert to equity […]
March 19, 2010 at 11:46 am
The Washington Post reports the U.S. military cyberattacked and shut down a joint Saudi-CIA Web site which had been set up to uncover terror plots in Saudi Arabia. The military said it was putting Americans at risk. International relations Professor Joseph Wippl, a 30-year CIA operations officer, says the shutdown could have been more tactful […]
March 18, 2010 at 3:54 pm
While most of the huge banks which got taxpayer bailouts last year have paid back their TARP loans, hundreds of community banks haven’t. Robert Bench, a former deputy Comptroller of the Currency and now a senior fellow at BU Law’s Morin Center for Banking and Financial Law, says it’s no surprise. Too many real estate […]
March 18, 2010 at 11:47 am
A proposal, backed by the Federal Trade Commission because it would save consumers money, would have banned patent settlements between brand-name and generic drug makers. But it was dropped from the health-care reform bill because it couldn’t pass muster with Congressional rules. School of Management Professor Michael Salinger, a former FTC director, the ban still […]
March 18, 2010 at 8:06 am
A new report says pharmaceutical sales growth has slowed in mature markets like the U.S. and Western Europe while it’s set to grow in China and Brazil. And it says unless current leading drug makers quickly expand into those markets, they’ll cede them to local producers. Law Professor Kevin Outterson, an authority on drup patents […]
March 17, 2010 at 11:31 am
Financial institutions and their allies are gearing up their lobbying effort to weaken Senator Dodd’s proposed financial regulatory reform bill. Law Professor Cornelius Hurley, director of the Morin Center for Banking and Financial Law and a former counsel to the Fed Board of Governors, says the proposed creation of a separate consumer-protection group within the Fed could […]
March 15, 2010 at 4:49 pm
The Foreign Policy Association has issued a new report urging the U.S. to take a more assertive role in pushing for a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. “Israel and Palestine: Two States for Two Peoples — If not now, when?” was co-authored by BU international relations Professor Augustus Richard Norton, who notes that President Obama said […]
March 15, 2010 at 11:19 am
In his once-a-year news conference, China’s premier sought to deflate pressure over Chinese economic policies and promised cooperation in revving up the global recovery. International relations Professor Kevin Gallagher, author of “The Dragon in the Room: China and the Future of Latin American Industrialization,” says says its good that China is pointing to other countries […]
March 12, 2010 at 4:34 pm
Federal regulators insist they’ll keep a close eye on the proposed merger of Comcast, the country’s biggest cable-TV operator, and NBC Universal, with its vast content-production empire. Law Professor Keith Hylton, an authority on antitrust law, says the feds need to make sure the merger won’t crush competition or harm consumers. “But the government should […]
March 12, 2010 at 3:18 pm
The federal bankruptcy examiner’s report on the collapse of Lehman Brothers shows the 158-year-old firm died from multiple causes, including bad mortgage holdings and accounting gimmicks used to hide its mounting debt. Law Professor Tamar Frankel, author of “Trust and Honesty: America’s Business Culture at a Crossroad,” says if Lehman scammed stockholders and investors, they […]
