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Easy Street

Easy Street: Bankers Without Borders. Or Regulators.

Heidi Moore May 18, 2011

Easy Street is Marketplace’s daily roundup of the most interesting news stories and commentary about Wall Street, Washington and the curious world of finance. You can see more of what we think are the biggest stories of the day on our News in Brief page. Every day, you can download Marketplace’s daily show on iTunes and follow us for more headlines at twitter.com/mktplaceradio. If you want to listen to Marketplace on the radio, find out [which stations carry us and what time we’re on](().

The Traders and Markets

Investing during a period of “financial repression” : powerful fund manager Mohamed El-Erian gives his view.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is proposing new rules for credit-rating agencies. Now it just has to propose how to make people follow them.

Oaktree Capital Management is seeking, to have its shares traded on the public market. This is interesting because Oaktree used to have its shares listed on a private exchange, but they weren’t getting very much demand. Oaktree will just have its shares ported over – it won’t raise any new capital. It just wants buyers, apparently.

The Bankers

Now that Dominique Strauss-Kahn is out of the way, the IMF could really make something of itself, argues Matthew Lynn.

Banks are being regulated by….Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?

The Economists

Jamie McAndrews of the Federal Reserve has a bone to pick with people who claim that the Fed’s $600 billion Treasury-buying program, QE2 (or as he calls it, “large-scale asset purchases, or LSAPS”) is just “printing money.” Nor will it lead to inflation, according to his argument. Read and think.

The Politicians

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner spoke at the Harvard Club yesterday.

Recreational Reading

A fake count is flogging Giacometti forgeries.

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