Law and regulation

Krueger, who would succeed Austan Goolsbee on the Council of Economic Advisers, had stints in both the Treasury and Labor departments

Remember that fuss about the dire danger of having an unknowable but evidently substantial number of banks that are Too Big to Fail? The message was: "Stop that!"

The Federal Reserve Board said Friday it will hold three public hearings on Capital One Financial Corp.'s proposed $9 billion purchase of online bank ING Direct USA.

The $3.4 billion-asset company announced last week that it paid $600,000 for a ham — the grand champion ham at the 48th Kentucky Country Ham Auction, an annual charity event.

The Washington Monument and the National Cathedral got most of the press coverage, but the Capitol Hill beehive for financial industry insiders also sustained a bit of damage in Tuesday's earthquake.

The banking and credit union trade associations in Washington are not known to see eye to eye very often. But they do sometimes swap staff.

An internal battle among the state attorneys general over foreclosure problems has raised doubts about their ability to negotiate a successful settlement with banks.

With the Eastern Seaboard bracing Friday for the arrival of Hurricane Irene, the FDIC told banks to look in the not-too-distant past for how to deal with damaging storms.

A new Federal Reserve Board report refutes the claim by some that the Community Reinvestment Act and affordable housing goals of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the mortgage crisis.

Nearly two years after HUD revamped mortgage disclosure rules, many lenders rely on manual processes — if any — and end up having to pay the difference between underestimated and actual closing costs.

In the Washington Post last week, housing columnist Kenneth Harney took an interesting look at mortgage loans guaranteed by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Two more community banks have exited the Treasury Department's Troubled Asset Relief Program with loans they received from another government fund designed to encourage small-business lending.

The Fed chairman said negotiations over the debt limit hurt the economy, and future such episodes could do even more damage.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. has agreed to pay $88.3 million to settle charges related to apparent violations of economic sanctions dating back to 2005.

The Federal Trade Commission, along with four state attorneys general, has shut down a fraudulent operation that allegedly took advantage of financially distressed consumers by falsely promising them a “guaranteed” $25,000 grant from the federal government.

The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Thomas Hoenig, said there's a limit to how much more the central bank can help the U.S. economy and that the focus should now be on solving the country's fiscal problems.

The Securities and Exchange Commission will meet Wednesday to vote on posing a series of questions to the public on investment companies' use of derivatives, according to a notice on its website.

First Busey Corp. in Champaign, Ill., has received $72.6 million from the Small Business Lending Fund, the largest award to date since the Treasury Department began disbursing funds to community banks last month.

Institutions made more progress this year clearing out the worst of shared corporate loans stemming from the financial crisis, but whether they can translate that into loan expansion is still an open question.

Any broad new plan to refinance mortgages would hold considerable appeal to the Obama administration, and might raise fewer objections than earlier plans did.