Saturday, February 15, 2014

Fraud in the Detroit Bankruptcy and the Role of Investment Banks

I read an interesting analysis of what's happening in the Detroit Bankruptcy proceedings. In a nutshell, it appears to be another case where the investment banks were able to take out millions of dollars in fees as they structured deals that ended up crippling the economy. In this case, the deals may be considered fraudulent according to this analysis. This seems to be business as usual in the investment banking world for about two decades or more.

Enron and WorldCom were frauds that were fueled by investment bankers and ended up becoming the largest bankruptcies in history. The mortgage meltdown was also fueled by investment bankers and that led to even larger bankruptcies and the world economy being brought to its knees in what is now known as the Great Recession. Now, the largest municipal bankruptcy in history also appears to have been fueled by some cleaver investment bankers who undoubtedly made out like bandits as it appears that they structured deals that gave them huge fees.