David Skeel on what's wrong with the mortgage settlement.

In one of Prof. Skeel's typically astute op-eds, he explains what's wrong with the settlement proposed by the state attorneys general (here).

Best quote in an op-ed referencing Nozick.

John Kay's piece in the Financial Times (here) includes this wonderful paragraph, which applies to corporate pay and the pay of estate professionals in bankruptcy cases:

And again, problems arise when people voluntarily hand over money that is not their own. John Kenneth Galbraith once described executive pay as a warm personal gesture by the beneficiary to himself. In today’s world of remuneration committees, it is more often a warm personal gesture by friends to each other. 

Perfect.

A must-get book if you're interested in Ponzi schemes.

Check out The Ponzi Book (here).  This book is for professionals who find themselves in the middle of a Ponzi scheme and need to understand the overlap among state corporate law, other state law, bankruptcy law, criminal law, and jurisdiction (to name just a few).  Here's the Table of Contents.

Were I to find myself in the middle of litigating a Ponzi scheme, this book would be the first one I'd open.

My Dad found this post for me.

See here.  Loved it.

Groupthink revisited (revisited again).

A few weeks after I wrote this post (here), I came across this study (here) discussed in the Wall Street Journal.  It gives some insight into why smart people might not speak up in small groups. 

What happens when smart people don't speak up--or when people don't listen to them?  See here.

Groupthink, revisited.

It's always interesting when the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal intersect (usually, they're two different worlds).  Today's WSJ story (here) suggests that rotating accounting firms will help in avoiding the too-close relationship that develops between the accounting firm and the client over time, and today's NYT article (here) suggests that the combined ideas of many aren't always better than the solitary ideas of a single smart person.

Reminds me of one of my favorite websites (here).  In particular, check out this one and this one. 

Why so few women directors?

Today's WSJ discusses the paucity of women directors (here).  There are good reasons and bad ones for appointing women to any board.  I don't believe that women automatically have an inherently different point of view or that their mere presence on a board will change its dynamics.  (Check out Enron's former board, which counted Wendy Gramm among its members, for example.)  But I do believe that individual women may have individual characteristics that might help particular boards.  Every organization has its own needs, and those needs will change from time to time.  But when an organization is searching only for directors who have been directors elsewhere (regardless of performance), and when most directors historically have been male, guess what happens?

For why I might be a useful board member for certain types of organizations, see here.