The fictitious company chosen for this exercise is a medium-sized investment bank called Armor Bank, which has a footprint in states in Southern United States. The bank has plans for penetrating markets in the rest of the country and is mulling options for a merger. Explain why government regulation is needed, citing the major reasons…
Tag: Lehman Brothers
Derivatives are toxic weapons of financial mass destruction?
Derivatives are an integral part of modern financial markets. Simply stated, a derivative instrument is a contract between two entities that specifies the values, dates, notional amounts and other conditions under which the transaction between them is to take place (usually at a future date). Derivates play an important role in streamlining economic activity, as…
The views of Robert Maxwell and Harold Edey on accounting policy, creative accounting and regulation
Robert Maxwell was credited with saying that Accountancy is not the exact science which some of us once thought it was, and in an academic paper, Edey (1989) stated that Accounting reports can provide no more than approximate (rough is a better term) indications of the financial health and state of a business. Profit is…
Bernard Madoff: Scapegoat of an Economic Crisis
Throughout human history punishments have been meted out to people who are not guilty or only partially guilty. Actions that can invoke punitive action from the authorities include treason, fraud, crime, breach of trust, etc. Famous examples from recent centuries include Galileo Galilei, Charles Darwin, Bertrand Russell, etc, who were ostracized and punished for expressing…
Is ‘nationalization’ of banks a better option than bailing them out to the tune of a trillion dollars?
The ideal remedial action from the government would have been to press forward with nationalization of banks. But unfortunately, the political pressures faced by President Obama and the stimulus announcements made in Europe had ended those hopes. President Obama was careful not to alienate the conservative sections of the House of Representatives by acting against…
Compare and contrast: The causes of the Great Depression and the 2008 economic crash
The Great Depression is one of the most significant periods in American history. This period of economic recession began in 1929 and continued for another ten years. Today we are in the midst of another economic recession, one that was triggered by the sub-prime mortgage crisis of 2008. The intensity and scale of the present…