Muffie Benson-Perella, moonlighting today as ghostwriter for Fortune Editor at Large Patricia Sellers, wonders in her “Postcards From the Pinnacles of Power” column why Lehman wasn’t saved, given its extensive “presidential connections.”
Dick Paulson, Hank Paulson’s brother, great-grandson of Theodore Roosevelt, and great-great-grandson of Theodore Rosevelt, President Bush’s second cousin, and Jeb Bush were all wonderfully nepotistic opportunities to keep conspiracy theorists buying Reynolds Wrap to wrap around their heads for years. (Flash trade idea: Short the Rank Group, Ltd., and go long tin futures before spreading the word that Reynold’s Wrap is actually Aluminum foil). So why didn’t Lehman get saved?
Wasn’t it a mistake to let Lehman Brothers fail? Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson was asked this very question in a Q&A that ran in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, and he replied, “We didn’t have an option.” He said that Lehman had neither a buyer, as Bear Stearns did in JPMorgan Chase (JPM), nor adequate assets to justify a life-saving federal loan.
Lehman Brothers’ presidential connections [Fortune CNN etc.]
Oh, the irony…..
17th!
Too much Muff, didn’t…
Dick Fuld was just a little too creepy for our taste -
H. Paulson
Another hit job from Fixed News against Wall Street. Fixed News sucks! They can’t just barge into Fuld’s Greenwich home and harass him (though he should have invested in gates and intercom)
Shame, Shame, Shame: Lehman Brothers Collapse
http://www.myfoxny.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail;jsessionid=E656D122F0BBE2C29BB1C5F347ABECCF?contentId=7939247&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1&sflg=1
Of course they should have saved Lehman. Of course it was a mistake to let it go.
Hank is just trying to escape responsibility for ruining the US economy.
He thought he was going to teach that bastard Dick Fuld a lesson and help out Goldman in the process, by removing a big competitor.
Lehman was always despised by Goldman for trying to emulate them.
Lehman viewed themselves to be much like Goldman and always thought of their franchise as the one to beat. The Lehman boys hated retail, like Smith Barney, Merrill, etc. Morgan Stanley was nothing like the upper tier they thought they were part of. Even the lowly Bear survived.
Lehmanites will always believe that they were shafted by Paulson and Treasury.
“The anonymous nature of these [online] communities only emboldens the meanness or callousness of the people on these sites,” Mr. Cole said. “Rarely does it bring out greater compassion or consideration.”
MS and GS are going bust too…LEH was just first.
EP = muffy
I miss the Muff
Wait. Wait.
“Jami Miscik, who was global head of sovereign risk at Lehman and then at Barclays, is in Washington now, helping Barack Obama line up his new national intelligence team. Having headed the CIA’s intelligence directorate pre-Lehman, she could land back in government.”
No freakin’ way! At the CIA, she was wrong on 9/11 and then wrong on WMD in Iraq?? And then she was useless at Lehman as “head of sovereign risk”??
In a normal world, she would be “starting a consultancy” or some similar language for “out of work”, right?
HOWEVER, she’s now helping the transition team vet intel appointees in the Obama Administration????? WHY???
Of Course Paulson & GS boys cooked up this plot over a year ago – some big fat doobies were smoked & a few scotches were downed, no doubt. GS knocked Fuld right out and thought(still think) they will be the last ones standing and this means more for them, the greedy fucks. So far World Domination and all that shit seems to be working……if it looks like a conspiracy, smells like a conspiracy then IS a conspiracy. Let’s get Oliver Stone on this one and bypass The Gasbag for once!
tin hats apparently abound here, sigh…
@12: I know her. She wasn’t “useless” at Lehman, she kept Lehman more on top of international risks to investments than any other bank.
Also, what do you mean by the CIA being “wrong” on 9/11? They knew who was to blame right away. They even issued reports ahead of time that bin Laden was planning something big.
Fuld got taken out because he wasn’t connected. MS and GS are still around because they are connected. Hell, Mack made a couple phone calls and got short selling banned for two weeks. Of course, MS preached the need for short selling for years when it benefited them to watch hedge funds taking out companies left and right. Of course, MS was pocketing some nice fees for helping them out. When the dog turned and bit the owner they went crying to Poppa who spanked them good.
Wall Street is them most corrupt place on the planet and MS is right in the middle of the whole thing. Not to mention GS and their boy in the white house!
11/27/2007: “…Tanona cut his price estimate for Merrill to $59 from $66, and for Morgan Stanley to $61 from $66. The estimate for JPMorgan was lowered to $46 from $51, and Bear Stearns was decreased to $106 from $118. Lehman’s was reduced to $70 from $71, while E*Trade was slashed to $6 from $15…”
Hank Paulson’s brother was an MD at LEH – fixed income i think.
It should be a great thanksgiving at the Paulson household.
Announcement
Chairman Ben S. Bernanke
Troubled Credit Card Balance Relief Fund (TCCBRF)
November 25, 2008
I appreciate having this opportunity to announce the Treasury’s Troubled Credit Card Balance Relief Fund, or TCCBRF, and to discuss recent steps taken by the Federal Reserve and other agencies to support the normalization of credit markets.
The TCCBRF has been created to promote financial stability within the consumer credit market. That Oversight Board has met four times, reviewing the inability of American consumers to live within their means and discussing possible additional steps that might be taken to prop up consumer spending. The value of the TCCBRF in promoting consumer spending has not yet been demonstrated. Despite the intensifying consumer spending crisis, the Treasury is confident that the newly unveiled TCCBRF will increase consumers ability to finance goods they could not afford otherwise. Failure to prevent consumers from living beyond their means to keep up with competing neighbors almost certainly will have dire implications for both the U.S. and world economies. Fortunately, the existence of the TCCBRF will allow the Treasury to react quickly by announcing a plan to pay consumer’s minimum credit card payments up to an aggregate amount of US $950 billion. As we write this announcement several thousand delinquent credit card holders are being notified via email that they will no longer have to pay their credit card balances. This action, along with the Federal Government’s HOPE NOW program, which will also pay thousands of American’s mortgage payments, will ensure that no American will have to slow spending for many years to come. Along with these two measures, the Treasury has also engaged with several large insitutions to begin a moratorium on auto-reposessions.
These recent steps, although drastic, will help not only to prevent a decline in consumer spending, but will delay any actual problems from surfacing. The aformentioned facility hopes to encourage increased lending and securitization, lowering borrowing costs and increasing affordability of various consumer products.
Thank you. I would be pleased to take your questions.
Fox News going all “Roger and Me” on Fuld is less than he deserves, frankly. Me, I want a show trial followed by a show execution. Offering him a blindfold and a last cigarette is the best I can do for Dick Fuld. He should burn in hell.
@20 employee/stock holder/both?
“We didn’t have an option(?)”
So, the option became, let Leh default, Reserve fund breaks the buck, run on money funds, run on CP, CP market freezes and even credit-worthy corporations are locked out of the CP market which leads to possible default, bills go to zero or even negative yields, stocks puke, credit market chaos reigns… and we didn’t have an option?
Those Goldman guys are pretty funny…
Wait a second, Muffie is not blaming the incoming treasury secretary for Lehman’s demise? Shame on you Muffie.
I strain to see how MS and GS have benefited from the credit crisis. They are alive but they are now commercial banks that are about to be quasi nationalized by the feds. These guys are on their last breath gentlemen.
How much more obvious can it be? I always thought the gov’t had to let the second bank fail, but this was a backboard shattering slam dunk.
Fuld may or may not deserve his own personal circle in hell, but I doubt we’ll ever know enough to determine this definitively. Ockham assures me that someone does.
You all should fail. Do you have any idea what you fucks are going to cost us Main street types? Fuck you, dill weeds. I hope you go back to Kansas with your collective tails between your legs. Yeah. Walk like a duck, asswipes.
TOGFD
Muff or the wideclops…..
Hmmmm…..
Go with the clops. She can see what’s coming…
Conspirscies and news headlines are hard to tell apart these days – it is funny that only a tear ago when I and everyone would say DOW was heading below 10K and the sky was falling, everyone called us crazy.
http://yourmortgageoryourlife.wordpress.com/2008/09/22/conspiracies-and-headlines-whats-the-difference/
Today everyone is saying the same things we did back then.
Now we are saying this is going to be bad through 2012, and no recovery until near 2020, and everyone says we ar crazy.
Everyone has their head up their ass.
Remember those “100 million shares stock buyback” press releases? At the top of the market? at 60+ dollars a share for lehman, for 170/share for Bear?
Here’s the answer! These are the people who were selling their shares back to lehman, back to Bbear and back to Merrill! once the’ve cashed out – who gives a ….. about lehman! let them go belly up, so that the same people can buy the assets for pennies on the dollar. the banks used to do this to “common” people left and right, now some of the “special” people did it to them. Booyah!
29 So every share that was sold was bought by LEH, ML, et al? I don’t think so. You need to work on your capital markets skills.