The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, published by the U.S. Government and the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in early 2011, is the official government report on the United States financial collapse and the review of major financial institutions that bankrupted and failed, or would have without help from the government. The commission and the report were implemented after Congress passed an act in 2009 to review and prevent fraudulent activity. The report details, among other things, the periods before, during, and after the crisis, what led up to it, and analyses of subprime mortgage lending, credit expansion and banking policies, the collapse of companies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the federal bailouts of Lehman and AIG. It also discusses the aftermath of the fallout and our current state. This report should be of interest to anyone concerned about the financial situation in the U.S. and around the world.THE FINANCIAL CRISIS INQUIRY COMMISSION is an independent, bi-partisan, government-appointed panel of 10 people that was created to "examine the causes, domestic and global, of the current financial and economic crisis in the United States." It was established as part of the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009. The commission consisted of private citizens with expertise in economics and finance, banking, housing, market regulation, and consumer protection. They examined and reported on "the collapse of major financial institutions that failed or would have failed if not for exceptional assistance from the government."News Dissector DANNY SCHECHTER is a journalist, blogger and filmmaker. He has been reporting on economic crises since the 1980's when he was with ABC News. His film In Debt We Trust warned of the economic meltdown in 2006. He has since written three books on the subject including Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity (Cosimo Books, 2008), and The Crime Of Our Time: Why Wall Street Is Not Too Big to Jail (Disinfo Books, 2011), a companion to his latest film Plunder The Crime Of Our Time. He can be reached online at www.newsdissector.com.

Experts from NYU Stern School of Business analyze new financial regulations and what they mean for the economy The NYU Stern School of Business is one of the top business schools in the world thanks to the leading academics, researchers, and provocative thinkers who call it home. In Regulating Wall Street: The New Architecture of Global Finance, an impressive group of the Stern school’s top authorities on finance combine their expertise in capital markets, risk management, banking, and derivatives to assess the strengths and weaknesses of new regulations in response to the recent global financial crisis. Summarizes key issues that regulatory reform should address Evaluates the key components of regulatory reform Provides analysis of how the reforms will affect financial firms and markets, as well as the real economy The U.S. Congress is on track to complete the most significant changes in financial regulation since the 1930s. Regulating Wall Street: The New Architecture of Global Finance discusses the impact these news laws will have on the U.S. and global financial architecture.

Deleveraging has two components--shrinking of balance sheets due to increased haircuts/shedding of assets, and the reduction in the interconnectedness of the financial system. We focus on the second aspect and show that post-Lehman there has been a significant decline in the interconnectedness in the pledged collateral market between banks and nonbanks. We find that both the collateral and its associated velocity are not rebounding as of end-2011 and still about $4-5 trillion lower than the peak of $10 trillion as of end-2007. This paper updates Singh (2011) and we use this data to compare with the monetary aggregates (largely due to QE efforts in US, Euro area and UK), and discuss the overall financial lubrication that likely impacts the conduct of global monetary policy.

This White Paper is the joint work of more than a dozen faculty members of the NYU Stern School of Business and the NYU School of Law. Stern and Law School faculty have published several books in recent years on regulatory reform, including a comprehensive assessment of the Dodd-Frank Act.The goal of the authors remains to contribute thoughtfully to the public discussion about ensuring a safe and efficient financial system. This White Paper, which builds on earlier Stern faculty publications, assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the Financial CHOICE Act proposed by the House Financial Services Committee. The CHOICE Act is the most comprehensive proposal for financial reform since Dodd-Frank and would, if enacted, dramatically alter the regulatory regime established by Dodd-Frank.

The good, the bad, and the scary of Washington's attempt to reform Wall Street The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is Washington's response to America's call for a new regulatory framework for the twenty-first century. In The New Financial Deal, author David Skeel offers an in-depth look at the new financial reforms and questions whether they will bring more effective regulation of contemporary finance or simply cement the partnership between government and the largest banks. Details the goals of the legislation, and reveals that how they are handled could dangerously distort American finance, making it more politically charged, less vibrant, and further removed from basic rule of law principles Provides an inside account of the legislative process Outlines the key components of the new law To understand what American financial life is likely to look like in five, ten, or twenty years, and how regulators will respond to the next crisis, we need to understand Dodd-Frank. The New Financial Deal provides that understanding, breaking down both what Dodd-Frank says and what it all means.

Taking position from the recent 2007-2009 financial crisis, Credit Ratings and Market Over-reliance: An International Legal Analysis by Francesco De Pascalis provides an in depth legal and regulatory analysis of the concept of over-reliance in the use of ratings and how regulation facilitates over-reliance is different from mere reliance on credit ratings. Not only does the book provide an incisive doctrinal analysis of the concept of over-reliance, it also considers over-reliance from a comparative and international perspective by reviewing legal and regulatory developments under European Union and US law and how over-reliance has been addressed in international financial regulation.