A collection of stories from SmartBrief publications and around the web…
Sign of the times: Remember when $50 billion was a lot of money on Wall Street? Nowadays, I see headlines about banks perhaps coughing up $50 billion to settle mortgage lawsuits and I think: “Meh … the banks can afford that.” Sounds kind of like a consumer opting to pay a speeding ticket rather than waste time in court trying to fight it.
Benchmark Reform: The headline of this Financial Times piece from Rosa M. Abrantes-Metz seems a year or two late, but the meat of the analysis is good stuff.
Rooftop Solar versus the utility lobby: Excellent reporting from Bloomberg on how utility companies are combating the rise in popularity of rooftop solar. Here’s a hint: It isn’t by making their own operations more cost-efficient for consumers.
The rise and fall … and rise again of securitization: The Economist weighs in on the life story of securitization. “Securitization certainly has a black mark against it, but it is far too useful to be banished for good. Almost all financial innovations, from the humble mortgage to the joint-stock company, have had to re-establish their reputations after a bust at some point in their history. Society benefited from their eventual rehabilitation—as it most probably will from the revival of securitization.”