Wall Street deviants play by their own set of rules. By Allie Conti.

U.S. regulators failed five big banks on Wednesday, including JP Morgan and Wells Fargo, on their plans for a bankruptcy that would not rely on taxpayer money, giving them until Oct. 1 to make amends or risk sanctions. The move officially starts a long regulatory chain that could end with breaking up the banks.

Bernie or no Bernie, 'Times' columnist Paul Krugman is wrong about the banks. By Matt Taibbi.

Yesterday Senators Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown sent a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, asking him to investigate potential U.S. involvement in the money laundering issues recently exposed by the leak of the Panama papers from the law firm, Mossack Fonseca… By Pam and Russ Martens.

I am now officially an economic advisor to Senator Sanders, and this column reflects some of that advice.  Part of my advice is not to take money from Wall Street felons. By William K. Black.

Americans don’t need offshore companies in tiny island nations to hide their money. America has Delaware. By Libby Watson.

Even as Clinton questions Sanders over the depth and sincerity of his financial reform ideas, she has big fans among former regulators now working with Wall St. By Zaid Jilani.

Senator Elizabeth Warren’s Q&A at an April 5, 2016 Senate Banking Committee hearing titled, “Assessing the Effects of Consumer Finance Regulations.”

International banking giants have denied allegations that they helped clients to avoid tax by using complicated offshore arrangements.

“The key of demagogic politics is to realize that the people who are really backing you are your campaign funders. Your job as a politician is to say, ‘I can deliver this constituency.’” By Michael Hudson in conversation with Chris Hedges.

Kviabryggja Prison in western Iceland doesn’t need walls, razor wire, or guard towers to keep the convicts inside. Alone on a wind-swept cape, the old farmhouse is bound by the frigid North Atlantic on one side and fields of snow-covered lava rock on another. To the east looms Snaefellsjokull, a dormant volcano blanketed by a glacier. There’s only one road back to civilization. This is where the world’s only bank chiefs imprisoned in connection with the 2008...

Seven justices heard arguments Tuesday weighing whether the island can escape crippling debts that the governor has warned are bringing it to the brink of ruin

Endorsements from lawmakers such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren of the U.S. Postal Service providing banking services overlook how a similar plan faltered after the Panic of 1907. By Stephen Matteo Miller. [Just look at him, with that depraved smirk. Who's he think he's fooling?]

A loophole helps the wealthiest Americans to perform major acts of public service. Is that fair? By Alec MacGillis.

A hedge-fund billionaire who¦s played an outsized role in promoting Hillary Clinton’s White House bid has a massive investment in fossil fuels. That should alarm all of us. By Will Bunch.

In an unintentionally hilarious piece evincing exceptional moral blindness, Mr. [Larry] Womack, a journalist, writes to Bernie: “Senator, you are forming a mob of angry, misinformed people and then turning it on the likely Democratic nominee. That, Senator, is a dangerous and destructive game. Does your campaign honestly wonder why it has become synonymous with nasty online invective?” Gosh... By William K. Black.

Michael M. Thomas’s fictionalized account of the 2007 financial crisis and its fallout by a former partner at Lehman Brothers, reviewed by Michael Dirda.

On Bill Black’s quest. By Terry Carter.

Goldman Sachs will pay about $5 billion to resolve state and federal investigations into its handling of mortgage-backed securities in the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, the bank said today. The agreement will settle "actual and potential civil claims" by the U.S. Justice Department and the attorneys general of New York and Illinois, as well as the Federal Home Loan Banks of Chicago and Seattle and the National Credit Union Administration...

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s annual report of credit ratings agencies finds that dubious practices persist long after the subprime meltdown. By Gretchen Morgenson.