Money market mutual funds remain a threat to the U.S. financial system, declared former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker recently (1). To lower the risk they pose, policymakers are currently considering changes that could see the funds become less attractive vehicles for investors.

If financial institutions were characters on a soap opera, the show would unfold somewhat like this: Scene 1 — The bank and an insurance product are in a dark hallway where they can't be seen. They're about to embrace, but the insurance product stops short.

Although the economy is still in crisis and the threat of a fall election is on every politician's mind, summer is traditionally when parliament slows down and this year won't be any different. But there's one important item on the government's agenda that we will hopefully see progress on over ...

Today, President Obama is scheduled to outline a set of proposals for reforming the regulation of U.S. financial markets. The goal, of course, is to minimize the odds of another crisis ripping through financial markets.

Did I say the G20 governments were going to give $500 billion to the IMF? Make that more than $1 trillion. The meeting has wrapped up and results are in — no to protectionism, yes to more stimulus and tighter regulation.

So the G20 has turned out to be a bit more than just handshakes and gift giving (you saw that Obama gave the Queen an iPod, right?). It wasn't clear what the results of this grand gathering of world leaders would be — there have been times where nothing meaningful ...

Okay, I’ve finally got the password and the permission to go ahead with this new blog. And so here we go—a dedicated attempt to chart the emergence of the new financial services industry that is necessarily going to grow out of the mess we’re in now.

The flight to safety has gone to historic extremes, as highlighted today by the plunge in three-month U.S. treasury bill yields to levels not seen since 1941 (0.02%). That’s one sign of how serious things have become. This is a “seven-standard-deviation” event unfolding before our eyes.

Nandu Narayanan, chief investment officer at Trident Investment Management, argues in his latest commentary that Citigroup is the “poster child” for what has gone awry in the U.S. financial sector (Mr. Narayanan’s hedge funds are doing quite well this year). What follows is a summary of the relevant sections.