Several weeks back, we posted the first and last installment of the DealBreaker Sex Diaries, for about five minutes, before we got in trouble with Dad and were made to take it down. But the basic gist of the impetus for ripping off New York’s “Sex Diaries” was that they frustrated us with their utter lack of, what’s the word—sex. There was always a lot of thinking about sex, a lot of near-sex, a lot of “my boyfriend grabs my breasts, and falls asleep” sex/“my girlfriend straddles me and passes out” sex, but precious little sex-sex.
Today’s SD, however, contains “three unsuccessful intercourse attempts, two fantasies, one porn viewing, one act of masturbation in a shared bedroom, and three acts of intercourse.” Here’s a quick bit:
Archive for August 2007
Recidivist escapee primates aren’t usually DealBreaker fodder but for some reason this tale of an orangutan who broke from his bonds caught our attention.
A 14-year-old Bornean orangutan got loose Sunday afternoon at Zoo Atlanta, spending about 30 minutes outside his compound before zoo workers tranquilized the animal and returned him to his habitat.
Sulango got out about 2:43 p.m., said Dennis Kelly, the zoo’s president and chief executive officer. He roamed no farther than 100 feet from the exhibit, he said.
The zoo declared a “code brown,” meaning it called specialists to move zoo-goers away from the site while others sedated the animal, Kelly said. Sulango, he said, seemed confused and didn’t venture far from the site.
Orangutan escapes exhibit at Zoo Atlanta [AJC.com]
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Attorney General
Will Chertoff Grab The AG Seat?
The Guy Who Killed Arthur Anderson Has Critics On Wall Street
By John Carney 
Chief among the names being thrown around as the next Attorney General is Michael Chertoff. And when we say the name Chertoff is being thrown around, we mean that Chertoff’s associates seem to be engaged in shock and awe carpet-bombing of the media and White House to get the job for their man.
Sometimes referred to as “The First Attorney of New Jersey” (a title which, we’re assured, is meant as a compliment), the current Secretary of Homeland Security has spent most of his career as a government lawyer. After graduating Harvard law school (where he served on the prestigious law review), he began his career as a law clerk for Justice Brennan, became an assistant US Attorney and was appointed by the first President Bush to serve as US attorney in New Jersey.
At thirty-six, he was one of the youngest ever to get such an appointment. “ Kid Prosecutor,” a partner at a prominent corporate law firm once called him. He served as the Senate Republican majority’s chief counsel during the Whitewater hearings. He became the head of the Justice Department’s criminal prosecution arm and then was appointed by to the Third Circuit as a federal appeals judge by the current President Bush. Between government stints, however, he worked a partner at Latham & Watkins, where he won a number of high-profile cases for the defense. This guy’s resume has over-achiever written all over it. If you line up the letters according to your decoder ring it spells “Supreme Court Justice.”
But when the Bush administration considered appointing Chertoff to run the SEC, Wall Street acted quickly to shoot him down. Lobbyists with Wall Street firms stressed that his record as a successful and aggressive prosecutor gave him little experience in dealing with business issues, and behind closed doors they whispered that he might have developed a one-sided view of corporate America and Wall Street as being rife with criminality and fraud. Eventually the Bush administration settled on Chris Cox, a former Congressman and Latham & Watkins partner who was viewed as more sympathetic to Wall Street.
Some on Wall Street believe that the same criticisms might be applicable if Chertoff were appointed Attorney General. His controversial decision to prosecute Arthur Anderson for its role in Enron’s destruction strikes many as a bad sign.
“The best we can hope for is that he’ll concentrate on terror issues,” one Wall Street lawyer said. “He’s a born prosecutor and no friend of Wall Street or business in general.”
Was the “recognition” of James Pallotta in his nearly 2,000 word tome to investors last week. It was Pallotta’s way of apologizing for being so hard on himself and an answer to the old riddle – what’s the sound of one hand patting yourself on the back. The full letter is reprinted after the jump, but here are some of the highlights:
To state the obvious, [the 8% loss] would not have been the case had we understood fully the speed and ferocity with which events would unfold. [Once we fix the flux capacitor, everything will be fine. Had we known we were going to lose a ton of money we wouldn’t have lost a ton of money because we would have done things that would have avoided losing money, having already known the things that would lose money.]
Compounding matters, our short book failed us, which was enormously frustrating because historically it has been more volatile than our long book (and, therefore, sized accordingly). [It’s enormously frustrating when the market doesn’t obey historical precedent, or when fund managers don’t obey the first rule of the market which is that it doesn’t obey historical precedent and that future performance cannot be predicated on past results.]
Many of our equity shorts ripped to the upside as VAR-induced forced-covering by quantitative strategies accelerated. [PS – it was the quant’s fault… f’ing computer models.]
We are first and foremost “bottom up” cash flow-obsessed stock pickers. [Jim Cramer without the sound board.]
In the end, it is entirely possible that losses will prove both “wide” and “narrow” in their distribution across the globe (meaning that losses will be widely distributed but will likely hit certain institutions particularly hard). However, a deeper crisis — spurred by failure (or near failure) of a major financial institution — must be acknowledged as a possible risk also. [A plague on all your houses, but some houses will be plagued more than others.]
Again, I welcome your calls and visits with our team in Boston, and I wish you the very best. [I just called, to say, I love you. Also, I will take you on a whale sighting excursion. Or we can go to Fenway. Or take a duck tour. Please just come visit. I’m so alone, so very alone.]
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Attorney General
Will Attorney General’s Resignation Help or Hurt Wall Street?
Gonzales Had A Mixed Record In The Eyes Of Many On The Street
By John Carney 
The resignation today of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has ignited speculation about who might fill the top spot at the Justice Department. On Wall Street some are wondering whether the Gonzales’ resignation might help or hurt investment banks, brokerages and corporate America on a number of pending legal issues.
The Justice Department handles more than just the prosecutions of organized criminals, drug dealers and terrorists. It is also involved in law-enforcement in the finance community and corporate America. Chief among the legal issues that concern Wall Street is so-called ‘scheme-liability,’ where banks may be found guilty for assisting the corporate fraud of their clients. Wall Street is also concerned with other issues of institutional liability, for instance whether to prosecute an entire company or an individual when fraud is alleged by executives and employees. Wall Street firms are generally friendly towards insider trading prosecutions, except perhaps when prosecutors get zealously creative and go after financiers whose acts are not widely thought of as illegal.
Under Gonzales, the Justice Department has had a mixed record on Wall Street issues. Gonzales himself, a former corporate lawyer whose list of clients once included Enron, is viewed as having a generally pro-business outlook. Some critics, who asked not to be named for fear of political or legal retaliation, dispute this.
“He’s pro-successful business,” one critic said. “But if your company is in trouble, his Justice department made no bones about going after you.”
The Department has aggressively prosecuted the folks its lawyers like to call ‘wrong-doers,’ including accountants who helped clients develop aggressive tax-avoidance structures, executives involved in back-dating and a host of others involved in the business scandals of the late nineties and early part of this decade. Since Gonzales ran into trouble following revelations of the firing of several government lawyers, many have seen the department as “rudderless.”
“It’s been an asylum run by inmates,” said one court observer.
There is a widespread view on Wall Street that career government prosecutors tend to be more hostile to business than political appointees with more experience in the private sector. There is a fear that a “rudderless” Justice department will drift into a more aggressive current for prosecuting alleged wrong-doing by corporate executives and Wall Street financiers. The hope on Wall Street is that Gonzales’ replacement will be named quickly and come from a background that displays some sympathy for business.
Several names are being talked about as potential nominees. The Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog has a great rundown of the likely suspects. Whether this will be a boon or a bane for Wall Street firms will likely depend on who President George Bush appoints to replace Gonzales, and how quickly that appointment is made. As the day goes on, we’ll profile some of the leading candidates for the job.
Who Will Be Our Next Attorney General? [WSJ's Law Blog]
We’re all for reducing the institutionalized love between a man and a woman down to dollars and cents and “fuck, you, I get the Pomeranian, you get the kids!” That should be obvious at this point. And, also, far be it from us to take issue with the math skills of others when we’ve never professed to be number-inclined people ourselves. But when it comes to protecting your assets, we do what’s necessary. So: New York’s advice today re: bear market divorces maybe ought to be avoided.
As you well know, unless a prenuptial agreement was signed, divorce laws in New York state that each spouse is entitled to half of all income earned. According to Nancy Chemtob, the lawyer consulted for the piece, if you think you’ll your salary and bonus will be smaller next year, you should get out “now!” (like, today), when you still have a decent amount of coin. Because “why be forced by the courts to split less money”? Well—maybe so that you can keep as much for yourself (and wives 2, 3, 4, 5) as possible, and out of the hands of that money-grubbing whore? Regarding the recommendation to call it quits *before* you get laid off by Bear (Global Alpha, etc), attorney Susan Bender told New York: “we have some pretty savvy judges in New York,” who may be onto your game, aptly named, “The fact that I found this advice to be sound is reason enough for me to get nailed by my ex and banned from ever working with money—my own and other people’s—again.”
Bear Market? Dump Your Wife [NYM]
Our own advice: tweak ever so slightly so that the marital (-dissolving) counsel is directed at the wives of Wall Street. Then you’ve got gospel.
Here’s one: in 2005, a letter sent to Reverend Barry Parker of St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Toronto warned the man of the cloth that one of his sheep had gone to the dark side. According to the note’s sender, P. Fate, who wrote from St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, parishioner/insurance executive Prem Watsa was taking stockholders of Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. for a ride. Mr. Fate, deeply troubled by this affront to Jesus and shareholder value, advised the Reverend to “be skeptical” and demand a full confession. Who do you think Fairfax claimed was behind the allegedly baseless smear campaign against the firm? If you answered “Satan,” you’re wrong, but on the right track (same goes for people who said “Jon Lovitz”). Fairfax, who has a history of “accounting lapses,” asserts that the letter was the work of hedge fund managers Stevie Cohen, Dan Loeb, David Rocker, Adam Sender, and Jim Chanos.
According to the ‘fax, who probably should’ve actually just gone with “Satan,” the managers hired Houston real estate broker/Nigerian natural gas dabbler/MI4 Reconnaissance director Spyro Contogouris to send out slanderous (and downright insulting) notes about the insurer in order to drive down its stock. (Fairfax also alleges that MI4 Reconnaissance employee Max Bernstein acted in cahoots, citing a lack of foreskin as motivation.)
Contogouris, who claims to be innocent regarding unrelated embezzlement charges brought against him last November, denies wrongdoing, as do the managers. The motley crew will argue to have Fairfax’s admirably creative albeit batshit crazy claim dismissed on September 5. It goes without saying that this sort of scheme seems beneath that of Cohen, who prefers to drive down stocks by just plain scaring the shit out of people with the rotting carcasses of dead sharks/humans; Chanos, because it seems unlikely that the guy who called out Enron would be all, “Hey, I’ve got a genius money-making scheme: we send a letter to a Reverend. That’ll bump us into the next tax bracket”; and Sender, because it obviously took many tries to get the glamour shot we borrowed from Bloomberg just right. For reasons we don’t think it necessary to get into here, Loeb is obviously suspect.
Hedge Fund Hit Man Hired by Cohen, Loeb, Sender, Says Insurer [Bloomberg]
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