Former money manager Ann Barnhardt, who in November of 2011 made the decision to cease operations of her brokerage firm and return funds to her customers citing “systemic” problems within the entire financial industry, has issued a new warning about the stability of US banks and the safety of individual deposit accounts.

SEC Chairwoman Schapiro believes money market funds, which hold commercial paper, short-term bonds and other assets with maturities of a year or less, could destabilize the financial system like the bad old days of 2008 because they're vulnerable to bank-style runs.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is launching on Tuesday the first part of an online database of complaints from customers in the $2.05 trillion industry. The database will list searchable information about individual complaints, including the name of the company responsible for the credit card, the type of complaint and the customer's ZIP Code.

Some industry officials say that the database exceeds the powers Congress gave the new agency, which was formed by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial-overhaul law.

“I don’t open U.S. accounts, period,” said Su Shan Tan, head of private banking at Singapore-based DBS, Southeast Asia’s largest lender, who described regulatory attitudes toward U.S. clients as “Draconian.”

A 2010 law, to be phased in starting Jan. 1, 2013, requires financial institutions based outside the U.S. to obtain and report information about income and interest payments accrued to the accounts of American clients. It means additional compliance costs for banks and fewer investment options and advisers for all U.S. citizens living abroad, which could affect their ability to generate returns.

“In the long run, if Americans have less and less opportunities to invest overseas, it would be a disadvantage,” Marc Faber, the fund manager and publisher of the "Gloom, Boom and Doom" report, said last month in Singapore.

Please read more here.

Alright, way to go SEC!

No one will come forward with information if they fear the SEC will out them.

Citi CEO Vikram Pandit and the bank's directors have been sued for allegedly awarding outsized pay to top executives.

Shareholders won the right to vote on executive pay at most public companies under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act.

Please read more here.

A financial innovation regulator?

Perhaps a good idea. Only problem is that the U.S. regulators (FDA, SEC, EPA, ...) don't seem to have very good track records.

Who would work at this new financial innovation regulator? The same bankers that need to be regulated?

Come on, who are we kidding here!

This article in the Economic Policy Journal illustrates some of the problems with U.S. financial regulators.

It includes an example of the absurd places U.S. tax money is going, to a YWCA officer turned high level Treasury official.

Computerised "algorithms" and high-frequency trading (HFT) have been blamed by critics for making markets more volatile, although others say the practice boosts liquidity.

The EU's executive European Commission has proposed new curbs on computerised trading, like monitoring access to markets, as part of its wider reform of securities markets known as MiFID II.

Please read more here.

Paul Woolley, who founded a center at the London School of Economics that studies "capital market dysfunctionality," put it even more bluntly to the New Yorker in 2010.

"Why on earth should finance be the biggest and most highly paid industry when it's just a utility, like sewage or gas?" he said.

Please read more here.