Nov 11, 2009, 10:34am
Nov 10, 2009, 8:45am
$$$ "How To Ground The Street," by Eliot Spitzer [Washington Post]
$$$ Damien Hirst Admits His Art Was Overpriced. Big Guy, your thoughts on the matter? [Cityfile]
$$$ GM Goes All-in (With 2-7 Off-Suit in the Hole) [1-2]
$$$ "I'm going to do what we need to do to keep the system strong but I'm not going to be looking to start up new things unless they're necessary, unless they make great sense," Mr. Paulson said. [WSJ]
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Sep 09, 2009, 11:27am
Goldman Sachs partner managing director Richard Kimball Jr. apparently got...
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Sep 09, 2009, 10:15am
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Posted by guest , Nov 17, 2008 5:56PM
I am a Luddite of the art world/market and don't have an aesthetic appreciation for what passes as contemporary art, but am I wrong to think that Damien Hirst was just trying to see how ludicrous he could price a piece of art and still sell it to some crazy soon-to-be-ex-Hedge Fund billionaire or soon-to-be-ex-Russian oligarch?
Posted by guest , Nov 17, 2008 6:05PM
"Art is worth what the next guy is prepared to pay".
That sums it up. The greater fool theory at work. I wish I could get my hands on the list of people who bought his work, that would be truly deserving the of name "short list".
Posted by guest , Nov 17, 2008 6:15PM
Is that really Elliot Spitzer?
As Bess would say, the guy has a pair.
Posted by guest , Nov 17, 2008 6:20PM
Damien Hirst = douche bag. Now that all you Ivy league fucks are broke, you might be able to see that he has been playin' you a'll real good! Asswipes!
TOGFD
Posted by guest , Nov 17, 2008 6:20PM
I'm gonna git me one of them Pontiac Azteks.
Posted by guest , Nov 17, 2008 6:34PM
@ spitzer:
Too philanderer; didn't read.
Posted by guest , Nov 17, 2008 6:37PM
I wonder if Stevie Cohen was the buyer of this Hirst piece:
"Damien Hirst sets new auction record with 'Investment Banker in Formaldehyde'"
http://newsbiscuit.com/article/damien-hirst-sets-new-auction-record-with-investment-banker-in-formaldehyde-371
Posted by HAM05 , Nov 17, 2008 6:48PM
After the initial transaction an artist has nothing to do with the price of his work - which is often why most artists are poor. Hirst is one of the few who can (could) name his price in primary sales bc there was such a strong secondary demand for his crap.
He is a mouthbreather, yes, but hes not the one who was looking to flip for a 100% profit in a few months. Contemporary art today is a joke as the 'natural' buyers have been crowded out the last few years by oligarchs and the like.
Posted by guest , Nov 17, 2008 6:53PM
Former Chrysler president Thomas Stallkamp said, "There's the feeling that next to financial services, automotive execs are the dumbest people in the world."
Posted by guest , Nov 17, 2008 7:05PM
Market place to auto execs: Make cars that don't suck.
Auto execs: TL;DR, bank holding status inc.
Posted by guest , Nov 17, 2008 7:05PM
Auto execs are the dumbest people in the world, bar none. Their only salvation is they take the UAW (second dumbest, but with good lobbyists) down the toilet with them if they go.
Posted by guest , Nov 17, 2008 7:16PM
Mr "Unprotected Anal Sex" gjuy is going to tell me how we protect against the evils of Wall St?
Bring back the pillories and stock and hang the sucker up to "air dry" in them for a few months this winter. That ought to shrivel his cojones down to a manageable size.
Posted by guest , Nov 17, 2008 8:10PM
Jerry Yang stepping down:
http://kara.allthingsd.com/20081117/yahoos-jerry-yang-to-step-down-as-a-search-for-new-ceo-commences/
Posted by guest , Nov 17, 2008 8:15PM
BOSTON (Reuters) - U.S. asset manager BlackRock Inc (BLK.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) warned its employees on Monday of impending job cuts to be made this week, saying it was looking for ways to reduce expenses in the challenging market and economic conditions.
The largest publicly traded U.S. asset manager joins a growing list of rivals who have announced job cuts as the financial crisis has battered asset values and triggered dramatic fund outflows.
"Expense policies and business practices will be tightened. However, it was not possible to reduce costs and achieve re-engineering efficiencies to the extent necessary without considering cuts in staffing. Some positions across the firm will be eliminated," BlackRock said in a memo to employees.
The firm said the job cuts will be communicated to the affected employees this week.
The memo was published on finance industry blog Dealbreaker on Monday. BlackRock spokeswoman Bobbie Collins confirmed the contents of the memo but declined to give details on the job cuts.
Posted by guest , Nov 17, 2008 8:28PM
Kudlow is laying it down on CNBC right now.
Posted by redpandot , Nov 17, 2008 8:48PM
@HAM - often the artist has almost no control on the initial transaction either. The mark up in this area is extreme... And the "taste-makers" are often the same as the "dealers"... talk about conflict of interest...
Posted by guest , Nov 17, 2008 9:08PM
spitzer's article is right on the money. Esp the bit about short sellers and private equity. Who gives a shit about his sex life.
Posted by guest , Nov 17, 2008 9:10PM
WTF!?
Posted by guest , Nov 17, 2008 9:17PM
#19, Had Spitzer been around he would have raped the short sellers and PE guys too.
He cares about absolutely nothing but concentrating more and more power unto himself through any means possible - legal or illegal. And he is also a hypocrite to boot.
Unfortunately an even like this lets all kinds of scum crawl out of their caves screaming how they had been right about everything all the while. The truth is that the role of lax regulation or otherwise in the US (by the Bush administration) has minimal impact upon the collapse of the global asset bubble.
If regulation were the only thing to be blamed - why are the highly regulated economies also tanking? If anything the US at least saw a proper bubble. These countries never saw any massive growth are now worse off that the US!
Spitzer is a wannabe dictator who doesnt care about anything else. Everything he says is just an excuse to that end. Now that he is not headed to jail for money laundering, looks like he is trying to make a comeback. My money is on him joining ACORN pretty soon. Thats his kinda organization.
Posted by guest , Nov 17, 2008 10:06PM
Regardless of whether or not you agree with the auto execs, the fact is we have a dying patient RIGHT NOW and we have to act NOW. And right now, we need to save the patient, not lecture him on his past mistakes. The time for lecturing can come later.
Posted by guest , Nov 17, 2008 10:15PM
Let us say you have a dying 70 year old alcoholic. And you have 2 expectant mothers giving birth to children. Limited resources (as is always the case) allow attending to only one. Would you invest in the future or try to save the worthless alcoholic?
More importantly, 1) it is the doctor's job to save a patient 2) the doctor gets paid for it.
Let us say all dying patients went to doctors and to get cured and to get medicines and treatment without any payment. What do you think would the doctor say?
Analogies suck but they can be twisted in every way. The dying patient here is UAW and its entitlement mentality. The industry is not dying - as long as people was cars there will be an auto industry to fulfill that requirement. What is shriveling to death is the cancerous growth called unionism on that industry. Better it die.
Posted by guest , Nov 17, 2008 10:20PM
If the Subprime crisis has taught the world anything then it is that deadbeats will be deadbeats. Giving them money is of no use. They wont know how much they can handle, will take more than they should and never pay it back. You might as well burn money.
GM/Ford here = subprime borrower. Their promise of building better "green" vehicles = home prices always going up. You may think that you are helping ownership (keeping jobs) but some people are just no upto the job of owning anything other than a trailer.
Posted by guest , Nov 17, 2008 10:22PM
the yangster is yanked! yahoo!
Posted by guest , Nov 17, 2008 10:24PM
I guess the same goes for elitist New Yorkers and finance folks. Good luck to you all. Thanks for destroying our economy.
Posted by guest , Nov 17, 2008 10:59PM
@ 21 / 22:
I hope you die in a fire.
Posted by guest , Nov 17, 2008 11:00PM
"Mistakes I made in my private life.."
Doesn't everyone hire a hooker from NYC and ship her down to DC so you can get some strange the night before you testify in front of congress. Of course this doesn't happen while you are governor and traveling with a state police security detail. Private life my ass. I feel cheated that we didn't see that prick take a perp walk like so many of the people he tried to convict in the press but lost to in court. Spitzer was actually guilty. Can't believe that fucker writes a piece in the paper and acts like he was some ignored prophet instead of nothing more than a shakedown artist with a law degree.
Posted by guest , Nov 17, 2008 11:01PM
25 - right on. heartless bastards
Posted by guest , Nov 17, 2008 11:53PM
first? Oh, I guess not. In that case......Too _____, didnt read. God Damn I am funny.
Posted by Anal_yst , Nov 17, 2008 11:58PM
@25/27
Do either of you dare make the argument that the UAW is in the right here?
Please, enlighten us. I implore, nay, beg of you!
Posted by guest , Nov 18, 2008 12:14AM
The UAW and wall streeters have a lot in common. Hugely overpaid, and facing massive layoffs. Lets go easy on each other. Kumbaya. Light some incense.
Posted by guest , Nov 18, 2008 12:16AM
Meredith Whitney's wedding announcement. It may be from a while ago, but damn it makes you question her Judgment. Maybe she just got lucky.
Posted by guest , Nov 18, 2008 12:17AM
sorry here is the link
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9407E2DF143AF930A25751C0A9639C8B63
Posted by guest , Nov 18, 2008 12:20AM
spitzer can't even manage his personal affairs, so thanks for the advice
Posted by guest , Nov 18, 2008 12:58AM
HE'S A FUCKING STEAMROLLER! DID YOU THINK ONE HOBUST WAS GOING TO KEEP HIM DOWN?
Posted by Anal_yst , Nov 18, 2008 1:08AM
@30
I see you point, but its apples to oranges, at best.
Wall Street has no job bank. The vast, vast majority of us have no defined benefit plan, we can't do the same job for 10, 20+ years without advancing like (some) UAW workers can. Most people who get onto the Street, and even more the ones who last do so because they've worked their asses off for their whole lives to establish a track record of achievement.
We don't get any sympathy (nor do we ask for or expect it) from anyone because we make (er, made) alot of money, which must mean we're just fucking everyone else out of their "hard earned" money.
Most of us didn't dream of being credit derivative traders or M&A bankers or any of the specialized professions within Finance when we were kids. Somewhere between highschool and grad school though, most of us realized we could use our brains to go into a field which offered the possibility to make a shit ton of money, and occasionally do some very interesting work. Many choose to work on Wall Street because its often exciting, its high stakes, etc.
The $ isn't everything, contrary to popular belief. 80 hour weeks, having to be available 24/7, and knowing that at any time you could lose your job on one bad deal or one bad trade, with no safety net besides whatever earnings you've hopefully put away for a rainy day are serious downfalls to the job.
Most people (I'd even go so far as to say pretty much anyone with a high-school education) can understand what most UAW guys do. Maybe 5% of people outside the business have any fucking clue what "Wall Street" does. Yet they criticize, chastise, and villainize "us" like they have 1/2 a clue regardless. Believe it or not, most people on The Street aren't the douchebag Ivy-league, preppy, pretentious asshole romanticized by the likes of Leveragedsellout.
Wall Streeters are just like the UAW?
Please, give me a fucking break.
Posted by guest , Nov 18, 2008 2:47AM
@35
Manufacturing jobs can be complicated, tough and even dangerous. I am not sure if any office monkeys could do it. I know that I would find it hard. Plus the barriers of entry could be higher. Again, I don't know much about manufacturing jobs. I do know about different engineering professions and anything to do with manufacturing is many times more complicated.
A lot of money was paid out in finance because of the mountain of debt piled up by the financial industry over the past 30 years. It was not because of any extremely complicated work.
I agree that a lot of people in finance were extremely smart. But what matters is the ability of your industry to capture the political center and slant everything to your advantage. Finance did that for the past 20 to 25 years. That influence seems to be waning now. There was a time when the automobile industry had a lot of influence. So there is that similarity too.
Posted by guest , Nov 18, 2008 4:49AM
hey Anal_yst isnt it about time tha you get promoted to the Ass_ociate level so you can become a bit less anal and a bit more of an ass?
Posted by guest , Nov 18, 2008 4:49AM
hey Anal_yst isnt it about time that you get promoted to the Ass_ociate level so you can become a bit less anal and a bit more of an ass?
Posted by guest , Nov 18, 2008 4:54AM
@37/38 - Dude, you crack me up!
Posted by guest , Nov 18, 2008 5:54AM
PS: Sex work should be decriminalized.
Posted by guest , Nov 18, 2008 9:00AM
#36, As an engineer who worked on the factory floor (metallurgical engineer, worked in an integrated steel plant) and now work in banking, I can assure you that there is no 'entry barrier' to the kind of manufacturing work that UAW covers. You basically need to not be a retard. You could replace a shop floor with a billion or two other people with little notice.
I could (if I wanted to) become a factory worker ANYWHERE in this world tomorrow. I had to slog my ass out and to get into banking. There is the difference for you. Btw, only 1% of the borader automotive industry is engineers and managers. The rest are all semi-skilled (welders etc) and unskilled labor.
UAW does not cover the engineers. It covers the unskilled and semi-skilled laborers who are totally replaceable. Wanna know why GM and Ford are going down and how the UAW is killing them? Read this BLS survey.
http://www.bls.gov/oes/2005/may/cars.pdf
And here is the most damning statement.
"Autoworkers earned a mean hourly wage of $20.53, whereas the U.S. mean hourly wage for all occupations across all industries was $18.21. This wage premium, however, was not evenly distributed across all automobile manufacturing occupations: employees in less skilled occupations were paid more than their counterparts in other industries, while those in highly skilled occupations, such as engineers, were paid less than their counterparts in other industries."
Posted by guest , Nov 18, 2008 9:31AM
I heard that Spitz and Swallows piece actually is an advertorial. This failing newspaper was the only one that stooped low enough to take his money to print this (yawn) la la la la la la la piece. Go back to Pee Wees Playhouse scumbag.