10:48 am: Tim Geithner is that boring English literature substitute teacher who reads in a staccato, not quite monotone, like its the first time he’s read out loud in public and he’s really distracted by the blond in the front row who sprouted about three years early. (Be that Dave or Dana, we don’t yet know).
His opening statement was a snoozer too.
Sez Geithner: “These were careless mistakes, they were avoidable mistakes, but they were unintentional. I have gone back and corrected these mistakes, and paid what I owed.”
Well, he’s one step ahead of an illegal immigrant then.
I think he thinks that if he keeps repeating “These were careless mistakes, these were avoidable mistakes,” it will all be ok. He’s said it now five times.
10:56 am: “Did you use software to prepare your tax returns?”
“I did.”
“What brand did you use?”
“…I used Turbotax to prepare my returns.”
Hah.
11:12 am: Who is this “John Kerry” person? He looks and sounds really familiar…. Nevermind. He must not be important. CNBC picked his time slot to break in to split screen and argue about Geithner’s lack of a plan and tax cheating.
Please tell me John Kerry didn’t just quote Paul Krugman. He did. Damnit. That guy is going to be impossible to live with now.
This exchange pretty much sums up the major issue we all face:
John Kerry: How exactly are you going to fix the “Zombie Banks” Paul Krugman refers to?
Chairman: You have negative twenty seconds.
Geithner: You’re right, Senator, the economy of the United States is very complicated. Thank you for your time.
I mean are you kidding me? This is the best this country has to offer? John Kerry quoting the likes of Paul Krugman, who, himself, stole the 10 year old term “zombie bank” from the EJ Kane order to be told by the Chairman that there are “negative twenty seconds left” and have the pretty boy tax cheat who wants to run the IRS but uses TurboTax to prepare his complex, multi-employer and NGO reporting tax returns admit that the United States economy is complicated? What the hell is wrong with these people?
11:37 am: “Mr. Geithner has been involved in about every flawed action in the recent administration….”
Here we go.
“Mr. Geithner does not provide a satisfactory explanation for the [tax] problem.”
Still, the Chairman, Senator Max Baucus, makes no apologies for trying to help the new administration get its economic team up and running.
11:45 am: I believe I have detected a pattern.
Senator: I am irritated that [tax reform / market pricing / the TARP / Zombie Banks / entitlement reform / local banks / the notice of this meeting] is not being addressed. Can you comment on that?
Chairman: You had 30 seconds, 25 seconds ago.
Geithner: Yes, the financial system is complex.
Huzzah!
12:07 pm: CNBC seems to think its all fine, this tax evasion (let’s face it, he didn’t pay it because he got away with it past the 3 year audit scope limit and he never planned to until he was vetted and someone told him to clean his fucking act up) since he apologized, and he is telegenic so let’s just move on. Nothing to see here. Move along.
12:12 pm: Geithner: I’m cracking… the… safe…. I’m cracking… the… safe.
That is so annoying.
12:24 pm: Geithner has morphed three times in this hearing. Now he reminds me of those Furby dolls- the ones that were banned in the CIA and NSA buildings because they recorded and repeated voices. Geithner seems to just spit out the same things over and over again. “Catastrophic failure.” “Careless mistakes. Avoidable Mistakes.” “Financial system… complex.” “Absolutely critical.” “Very important concern.”
We are confirming a robot.
Archive for January 2009
After losing 26.80% in 2008, most if not entirely due to the wrongness of the markets, which apparently didn’t get the memo that Perry People are not to be fucked with, we are back, my beautiful babies, and ready to dominate. You know it, I know it. We’ve identified the many, many holes in this bitch and are just standing by, ready to plug the shit out of them. Thinking men that we are, however, we would be remiss if we did not reflect on what we’ve learned from this year’s unsolicited reaming.
The canning campaign begun at Bank of Amerillwide a couple weeks back proceeds at a pace, with the firm set to cut around 4,000 employees from the capital markets biz (likely tomorrow but possibly beginning as early as today.) According to the FT, the reductions in headcount are expected to be relegated mostly to New York, and affect mostly BAC legacy employees. More news as it comes in. Have something to get off your chest (Angelo)? Let us know.
Earlier: Layoffs At BAC
England’s Exchange Rate At All Time Low Against Yen (WSJ)
The principle concern here is the stability of the British system, which as we saw with the RBS numbers might not be in the best of situations. Britain has poured a little more than £500B into their system according to Brown, which is a substantial sum when you consider their population is roughly one sixth of the United States.
In related news, Barclays might be facing nationalization as their shares have fallen 62% over the last month of trading.
“Barclays said Jan. 16 its pretax profit will be well ahead of the average analyst estimate of 5.3 billion pounds. The bank said in October it had a net credit-market writedown of 2.1 billion pounds and opted out of the U.K.’s 50 billion-pound plan to recapitalize banks. Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc forecast a 2008 loss of 28 billion pounds on Jan. 19 as the government said it would increase its stake to 70 percent.”
Crisis May Force Geithner’s Approval (Reuters)
There are ongoing discussions as to whether or not the nominee’s slip in paying taxes is reason enough to disqualify him from the position, which at the moment appears to be nothing more than a giant waste of oxygen.
PIMCO Walks Away From GM (Bloomberg)
In a move that reaffirms “investor first” Bill Gross has announced that his firm is walking away from the GM deal because, as they put it:
“We have the interests of our clients more at heart than the interests of particular corporations or even the government.”
Who says capitalism is dead?
SEC reviews disclosure of Apple CEO health issues (Reuters)
U.S. regulators are making sure investors were not misled down the path of hormone imbalance.
Bank of New York quarterly net income falls 88% (Market Watch)
Fourth-quarter net income came in at $61 million, down 88% from the year-earlier period when the custodial bank and asset management company made $520 million. Sayeth chairman Robert P. Kelly: “We believe that the actual incurred loss will ultimately be materially lower based on current assumptions. We should have the opportunity to earn back a substantial portion of the write-downs over the remaining lives of the securities.”
$$$ Madoff nephew homeless [NYP]
$$$ Preventing The Greatest Heist In History [Clusterstock]
$$$ Not even sure why at this point but: “How My Blog Earned $83,358 In December 2008” [TS]
RBS -69.77%
BCS -42.76%
JPM -20.46%
BAC -29.39%
WFC -24.68%
GS -18.55%
C -19.14%
Ouch. Didn’t you guys like the speech or what?
Wealthy Arabs selling?
You tell us.
The Post gives us this tantalizing hint on the possible status of Marcus Mistress Kelly Baker describing the days and moments before his last fateful flight:
Days before he tried to fake his death in a bizarre plane crash, accused swindler Marcus Schrenker pulled another brazen stunt – whisking his mistress away for a New Year’s Eve tryst in Florida as authorities raided his wife’s Indiana home.
The rogue investment manager, 38, flew girlfriend Kelly Baker, 31, to Key West….
She and Schrenker flew back home New Year’s Day and are seen in the videotape lounging at a table in the airport lobby.
“She was sick – probably from the night before,” said a source who saw the couple’s return.
[...]
Video footage shows [Schrenker] calmly loading and checking his plane, and doing doughnuts on the snowy airfield in a pickup truck before takeoff.
On The Wings Of Lust [New York Post]
Robert Jaffe, the so-called “point-man” for Ponz. master Bernie Madoff, has informed authorities for the second time that he will not be complying with the demands of Massachusetts regulators. Last week he RSVP’d no to Secretary of State William Galvin’s request, by order of subpoena, that he appear to answer questions re: Madoff. This time, after they sued him in state Superior Court to provide testimony tomorrow, Bobby was courteous enough to give Bill’s office more than 24 hours notice that he’d be a no show for their meddlesome bull shit session. Are we looking at the face (at left) of our next fugitive? Or just a crotchety old man? We like to think it’s the latter.
“Ok, let’s see. Emergency. Emergency. Something that would make me just keep flying like… like on… autopilot. Yes. Autopilot. Why would I put the autopilot on. Hmmm. Weather? Mile high club? Heh heh heh. Hmmm. Damaged aircraft? Damaged aircraft that I can’t see out of. Damaged… window? Damaged windscreen. Jacksonville Center, November 428 Delta Charlie, my face has exploded and my windscreen is bleeding massively. No… no, that’s not it. Jacksonville Center, my windscreen has exploded and I’m bleeding horribly. No… sounds to… ghoulish. I need it to be professional. I’m being recorded. This will be in the history books, my last words. It has to sound… like I’m still in command going down fighting. A hero to the last. My windscreen is broken and I… no. Windscreens don’t explode, or just break they… implode. Imploded. My windscreen has imploded. Jacksonville Center, November 428 Delta Charlie, my windscreen has imploded and… hmmmm. And… and I’m bleeding… how am I bleeding? Glass… everywhere. Cut… jugular. What’s the word? Prolifically? Protagonist? Pro… fusely. Profusely. Jacksonville Center, November 428 Delta Charlie, my windscreen has imploded and I’m bleeding profusely. Yes… yes… that’s it.”
“What in the world are you doing in there?”
“Nothing!”
“You know, I can’t find the map book anywhere and your wife’s attorney was calling earlier and… hey, what happened?”
“Nothing. I just cut myself shaving, that’s all.”
…when rescuers reached his crashed aircraft, they found “evidence including a book of campsites in America missing its pages on Alabama and Florida, and a bullet-point list scribbled on the back of a book that read: ‘cracked windshield, window imploded, bleeding profusely’.”
Fake plane death businessman left SOS bullet-point list [The Register]
And you thought you had it bad:
The investment firm of Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the largest private shareholder in Citigroup, posted a $8.26 billion net loss in the fourth quarter as the value of its assets dove.
I suppose we had to find someone to fill the part of “foreign investors fleeced by U.S. assets” since the Japanese engaged in the ruinous purchase (and subsequent firesale back to original owners) of U.S. real estate assets. This time it was China and Petrodollars and the assets were financial. Chant it with me: U-S-A, U-S-A….
Saudi’s Kingdom Holding posts $8.3 bln Q4 loss [Reuters]
Later, We’ll Ask You To Correctly Identify The Filthy Figure Mud Wrestling With Charlie Gasparino
By Equity PrivateBoy-toy CEO Jamie Dimon is arm-wrestling with _______.
