The looming danger of non-banks

The most likely cause of a future financial crisis isn't the banks, it's the non-banks. They're enormous, they're much less regulated than banks are, and they tend to have much greater leverage.

Felix Salmon

The 2008 crisis really did start off worse than the Great Depression

Matt O'Brien

Special report: We're safer 10 years after financial crisis

Felix Salmon

The Cryptocurrency Game With a $9 Million Prize

Is Fomo3D an incisive critique, a scam, or a little of both?

Arvind Dilawar

People are worried about these economic warning signs. They can relax. For now.

Andrew Van Dam

Elizabeth Holmes Deserves Prison, but Her Indictment Won’t Make Silicon Valley Any Less Reckless

The only way to disincentivize founders from lying to investors is to throw one or two of them in jail for doing so. And Elizabeth Holmes doesn’t count. The Theranos indictment is likely to have zero deterrent effect, because it’s clear that she’s not really being prosecuted because she lied to investors. That’s just the easy, prosecutorial low-hanging fruit. The real reason for the prosecution is that her activities were incredibly reckless and dangerous on a human level for thousands of patients’ health.

Felix Salmon

Index Funds Are Not the Problem

Blaming the big funds for excessive CEO pay is as ridiculous as the pay itself.

Felix Salmon

Why Money Managers Are Paid So Much Is a Mystery

Noah Smith

Martin Shkreli Is Going to Jail and I Can’t Even Bring Myself to Enjoy It

That sums up a lot about the state of U.S. capitalism and law. It’s perfectly kosher to milk grotesque profits from old, life-saving medications. But playing games with a relatively small amount of investors’ cash can get you put away for the better part of a decade.

Jordan Weissmann

There Is Not a Single Good Reason to Deregulate Banks Right Now. Democrats Are Helping It Happen Anyway.

If Dodd-Frank was truly throttling the banking system with red tape, though, you would expect to see some signs that Americans were having trouble borrowing. But there simply aren't any.

Jordan Weissmann

The next big bad bet might be lurking on Wall Street — and we just got a glimpse of it

Investors banking on market calm just got burned on a bet many didn’t entirely understand they were making.

Emily Stewart

Panicking about the stock market? You’re thinking about it the wrong way.

Roger Lowenstein

The robots v. robots trading that has hijacked the stock market

Why is it that when the market is climbing by improbable leaps and bounds month after month, that we are supposed to take that as a genuine reflection of the fundamentals, but when the market is in a free fall, we are supposed to write that off as momentary fits of irrationality?

The truth is that the market is just as irrational and divorced from fundamentals on the way up as it is on the way down. It is in the nature of markets more so today than ever, thanks to the computerized high-frequency trading strategies of the Wall Street wise guys. What we've watched this week is herd behavior on steroids.

In truth, there is no reason that a financial system has to be this complex and so volatile. There is no reason that it has to divert so much of the country's talent and capital, and to siphon off so much for traders and bankers and hedge fund managers. With a bit of intelligent regulation, we could have a financial system that is simpler, less risky, less expensive and less susceptible to manipulation.

There is a cost to the kind of financial "innovation" that produces instruments like the Velocity Shares Daily Inverse VIX Short-Term Exchange-Traded Note. And my guess is that those costs now greatly exceed the benefits.

Steven Pearlstein

What is the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX)?

Zachary Basu

Please Don’t Panic About the Stock Market

Jordan Weissmann

It's Time for Wall Street to Give Up Its Love Affair With the Dow Jones Industrial Average

Let's face the facts: The Dow is a historic novelty, and the S&P 500 is a much better stock market barometer.

Sean Williams 

Bank of America Just Reminded Us of Why We Need Postal Banking

Jordan Weissmann

“The hypocrisy is astounding”: this tax bill shows the GOP’s debt concerns were pure fraud

Ezra Klein

Policy Mistakes

Bill McBride

Lots of Liquidity Isn't Always Better

Noah Smith