Congressional fact-finding hearings are generally unedifying spectacles, involving as they do the weird rite of ritual public witness humiliation and accomplishing little except the suggestion of troubling questions about the kind of person who manages to get elected to Congress. Some might say that the series of hearings about Wall Street and the Financial Crisis recently launched

The worst of the global financial crisis may be past, and we may even be well on the road to economic recovery, but there still may be considerable pain yet to come, particularly in connection with commercial mortgages. Increased vacancies, declining property values and shortages of refinancing capital could mean increasing numbers of commercial mortgage

Georgia’s banks have issues. The state has led the nation in the number of bank failures since January 1, 2008, a fact that earlier this year (even before the most recent round of closures) led the Wall Street Journal (here) to describe the Atlanta area as "the bank failure capital of the world."

The current global financial crisis may result in "unprecedented levels of litigation" that "will either serve to identify ‘weak links’ in the chain of participants who originate, appraise, and service collateral and underwrite, manage, insure, rate and sell securities," or it will serve to "highlight where the market may have underappreciated certain risks or failed