New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a lawsuit against Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo yesterday for using "false and misleading information" to foreclose on properties. more ›

According to the WSJ, Wall Street's end-of-year bonuses will shrink drastically thanks to dismal fourth-quarter figures. Around 400 partners at Goldman Sachs will see their net pay cut in half, while Morgan Stanley's bonuses may dip from 40% to 30%. Some socialist bankers (they exist) might suggest that a falling tide sinks all boats, but those idiots clearly haven't stepped aboard the Serene. Never ones to take fairness lying down, a group of executives at the brokerage firm Jefferies Group are threatening to sue or quit or both if their pay isn't up to par. more ›

Remember when we taxpayers just had to bail out all those financial institutions because they were in terrible financial shape and "too big to fail?" If we fronted them a little money now, we were told, these normally successful banks would keep on humming. But through FOIA requests, Bloomberg News reveals that the bailout was much larger than initially believed—$7.7 trillion by September of 2009, and banks made an estimated $13 billion of the generous terms of the loans. more ›

If your stomach can handle it, think back to 2008 when there was panic about Wall Street banks, in the wake of Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy. The government gave insurance firm AIG an $85 billion loan in exchange for a 79.9% stake in the company, to prevent it from collapsing and taking other institutions with it (see: Too Big To Fail). Well, now former AIG CEO Maurice "Hank" Greenberg is suing the government, claiming the takeover was unconstitutional and that the "Fed breached its duty to A.I.G. shareholders when it unwound the company’s disastrous bets on mortgage securities," the NY Times reports. more ›

After successfully securing their place in Zuccotti Park and seeing more violent reactions from the NYPD, the Occupy Wall Street protesters will take their message worldwide. 951 cities spread over 82 countries will feature marches and demonstrations in an effort to enact "Global Change." New York City will host several events, beginning with a march on Chase Bank at 11 a.m. and culminating in a 5 p.m. meet up in Times Square. more ›

Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Connecticut) is set to unveil a financial reform bill that gives more power the Federal Reserve and includes "legislation tougher on financial companies than was expected just a few weeks ago" (Wall Street Journal) and a "new government watchdog for financial consumers [to] be housed within the Fed" (Reuters). And, to make matters more exciting, Politico says, "Neither side will be satisfied by what Dodd's offering, and particularly the left." more ›

Today, the House of Representatives "approved the most sweeping overhaul of the nation's financial regulatory system since the Great Depression," according to the Washington Post. The NY Times reports the vote, which was 223-202, created the Consumer Financial Protection Agency which would oversee lending, "establishes new rules for transactions that contributed to the meltdown, and seeks to reduce the threat that one or two huge companies on the verge of collapse could bring down the economy." more ›

Yesterday, former governor Eliot Spitzer spoke at Harvard University's ethics center to discuss big business and government, much to the dismay of one of the madams he used for his dalliances with escorts. He mostly discussed the economic crisis, but he did answer a question about the prostitution scandal that brought down his poltiical career. According to the NY Times, a man "with a long gray ponytail sticking out of his baseball hat," began, "I may sound like a conspiracy theorist," and then asked if there were "'ulterior motives' behind the timing of the disclosure of the prostitution ring that he said was leaked to the news media." more ›