Loren C. Steffy's Blog, page 63

Corzine vs. Corzine: he called for laws he later lobbied against

The demise of MF Global raises serious concerns about the effectiveness of Wall Street regulation.

Banks drive customers to credit unions — and they may not care

Thanks to Bank of America's debit-card fee debacle, credit unions signed up an estimated 40,000 new accounts, covering about $80 million in savings, last week.

Poll: Airlines vs. banks — which fees are better?

Which is a better fee: paying to talk to a customer service representative or paying to use an online network?

Dynegy's done: company puts worst-performing assets in bankruptcy

Dynegy made it official yesterday, putting a collection of its worst-performing assets into bankruptcy after bondholders refused to accept an offer to exchange their debt for new notes. The filing, which would restructure about $4 billion worth of debt, became inevitable after last week's announcement that the company missed a $43.8 million interest payment on [...]

Pulling the plug on `robosigning' — again

You may have thought that after the mortgage meltdown, banks and mortgage companies had ended the practice of robosigning, in which they have low-paid staffers signing hundreds of documents a day and filing them with the court to satisfy legal requirements. It now appears they didn't, even though many big banks claimed they did. This [...]

A look at Exxon Mobil's new campus

This video gives a first look at what Exxon Mobil's new office campus in north Houston will look like when it's completed in about 2014. There's about a minute and a half of what my wife would call blibber-blabber at the beginning. The 3-D graphical tours of the facility begins at about 1:29. One interesting [...]

Executives versus athletes: is one's pay more justified than another's?

After Wednesday's column on the final fleecing of Nabors Industries' shareholders by retiring chief executive Eugene Isenberg, I got a letter pointing out that the original news story about Isenberg's severance ran above the fold on the front page of Tuesday's Houston Chronicle. That same day, a small story on the second page of the [...]

MF Global's collapse reveals the lies in Wall Street's cries

The collapse of MF Global is yet another reminder that Wall Street is writing its own reforms. Coming on the heels of Citigroup's $285 million nuisance fine over mortgage-backed securities abuses and Bank of America's latest backdoor bailout, it shows there's little appetite in Washington to bring meaningful change to the way Wall Street does [...]

Bank of America's $5 fiasco

Now you fee it, now you don't. After threatening customers a month ago with a $5 monthly fee for using debit cards, Bank of America has now scrapped the idea. The decision comes after other major banks, including JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo, gave up on similar plans and other regional banks that had [...]

Dynegy circles the drain

Dynegy's efforts to force its bondholders to take a haircut isn't going well. The company said yesterday that it missed a $43.8 million interest payment on some of its notes, which could leave the company in default if it doesn't make the payment in the next month. While analysts see the tactic as a way [...]